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Title: My further disillusionment in Russia
Author: Emma Goldman
Release date: August 5, 2024 [eBook #74192]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1924
Credits: Tim Lindell, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY FURTHER DISILLUSIONMENT IN RUSSIA ***
MY FURTHER DISILLUSIONMENT
IN RUSSIA
My
Further Disillusionment
in Russia
By
Emma Goldman
_Being a Continuation of Miss Goldman’s
Experiences in Russia as given in “My
Disillusionment in Russia”_
[Illustration: colophon]
Garden City New York
Doubleday, Page & Company
1924
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
_First Edition_
PUBLISHERS’ NOTE
Some years ago Emma Goldman was deported from this country and went to
Russia to investigate personally what she believed to be the nearest
approach to a Utopia which the world had yet produced.
Her experiences so thoroughly disillusioned her that she conceived it to
be her duty to set forth these experiences and her conclusions, which
she did in a book entitled “My Disillusionment in Russia.” The rights in
this material she sold to an American newspaper syndicate from whom we
purchased the book rights, and by whom we were furnished with the copy
for the book. We published the book under date of October 26, 1923, and
not until it was in circulation did we learn that it was minus the last
twelve chapters which had never been turned over to us by the newspaper
syndicate, nor had any intimation been given us that the copy turned
over to us was incomplete. While the conclusion of the book as we
published it was abrupt it was not more so than is frequently the case;
and, therefore, there was no internal evidence to indicate its
incompleteness.
We are now rectifying this serious error by the publication in a
separate volume of the twelve missing chapters under the title, “My
Further Disillusionment in Russia.” This material is even more important
in its revelations and of even greater interest than that already
published.
PREFACE
The annals of literature tell of books expurgated, of whole chapters
eliminated or changed beyond recognition. But I believe it has rarely
happened that a work should be published with more than a third of it
left out and--without the reviewers being aware of the fact. This
doubtful distinction has fallen to the lot of my work on Russia.
The story of that painful experience might well make another chapter,
but for the present it is sufficient to give the bare facts of the case.
My manuscript was sent to the original purchaser in two parts, at
different times. Subsequently the publishing house of Doubleday, Page &
Co. bought the rights to my work, but when the first printed copies
reached me I discovered to my dismay that not only had my original
title, “My Two Years in Russia,” been changed to “My Disillusionment in
Russia,” but that the last twelve chapters were entirely missing,
including my Afterword which is, at least to myself, the most vital
part.
There followed an exchange of cables and letters, which gradually
elicited the fact that Doubleday, Page & Co. had secured my MSS. from a
literary agency in the good faith that it was complete. By some
conspiracy of circumstances the second instalment of my work either
failed to reach the original purchaser or was lost in his office. At any
rate, the book was published without any one’s suspecting its
incompleteness.
The present volume contains the chapters missing from the first edition,
and I deeply appreciate the devotion of my friends who have made the
appearance of this additional issue possible--in justice to myself and
to my readers.
The adventures of my MSS. are not without their humorous side, which
throws a peculiar light on the critics. Of almost a hundred American
reviewers of my work only two sensed its incompleteness. And,
incidentally, one of them is not a “regular” critic but a librarian.
Rather a reflection on professional acumen or conscientiousness.
It were a waste of time to notice the “criticism” of those who have
either not read the book or lacked the wit to realize that it was
unfinished. Of all the alleged “reviews” only two deserve consideration
as written by earnest and able men: those of Henry Alsberg and H. L.
Mencken.
Mr. Alsberg believes that the present title of my book is more
appropriate to its contents than the name I had chosen. My
disillusionment, he asserts, is not only with the Bolsheviki but with
the Revolution itself. In support of this contention he cites Bukharin’s
remark to the effect that “a revolution cannot be accomplished without
terror, disorganization, and even wanton destruction, any more than an
omelette can be made without breaking the eggs.” But it seems not to
have occurred to Mr. Alsberg that, though the breaking of the eggs is
necessary, no omelette can be made if the yolk be thrown away. And that
is precisely what the Communist Party did to the Russian Revolution. For
the yolk they substituted Bolshevism, more specifically Leninism, with
the result as shown in my book--a result that is gradually being
realized as an entire failure by the world at large.
Mr. Alsberg also believes that it was “grim necessity, the driving need
to preserve not the Revolution but the remnants of civilization, which
forced the Bolsheviki to lay hands on every available weapon, the
Terror, the Tcheka, suppression of free speech and press, censorship,
military conscription, conscription of labour, requisitioning of
peasants’ crops, even bribery and corruption.” Mr. Alsberg evidently
agrees with me that the Communists employed all these methods; and that,
as he himself states, “the ‘means’ largely _determines_ the ‘end’”--a
conclusion the proof and demonstration of which are contained in my
book. The only mistake in this viewpoint, however--a most vital one--is
the assumption that the Bolsheviki were forced to resort to the methods
referred to in order to “preserve the remnants of civilization.” Such a
view is based on an entire misconception of the philosophy and practice
of Bolshevism. Nothing can be further from the desire or intention of
Leninism than the “preservation of the remnants of civilization.” Had
Mr. Alsberg said instead “the preservation of the Communist
dictatorship, of the political absolutism of the Party”, he would have
come nearer the truth, and we should have no quarrel on the matter. We
must not fail to consider that the Bolsheviki _continue_ to employ
exactly the same methods to-day as they did in what Mr. Alsberg calls
“the moments of grim necessity, in 1919, 1920, and 1921.”
We are in 1924. The military fronts have long ago been liquidated;
internal counter-revolution is suppressed; the old bourgeoisie is
eliminated; the “moments of grim necessity” are past. In fact, Russia is
being politically recognized by various governments of Europe and Asia,
and the Bolsheviki are inviting international capital to come to their
country whose natural wealth, as Tchicherin assures the world
capitalists, is “waiting to be exploited.” The “moments of grim
necessity” are gone, but the Terror, the Tcheka, suppression of free
speech and press, and all the other Communist methods enumerated by Mr.
Alsberg _still remain in force_. Indeed, they are being applied even
more brutally and barbarously since the death of Lenin. Is it to
“preserve the remnants of civilization,” as Mr. Alsberg claims, or to
strengthen the weakening Party dictatorship?
Mr. Alsberg charges me with believing that “had the Russians made the
Revolution à la Bakunin instead of à la Marx” the result would have been
different and more satisfactory. I plead guilty to the charge. In truth,
I not only believe so; I am certain of it. The Russian Revolution--more
correctly, Bolshevik methods--conclusively demonstrated how a
revolution should _not_ be made. The Russian experiment has proven the
fatality of a political party usurping the functions of the
revolutionary people, of an omnipotent State seeking to impose its will
upon the country, of a dictatorship attempting to “organize” the new
life. But I need not repeat here the reflections summed up in my
concluding chapter. Unfortunately they did not appear in the first
edition of my work. Otherwise Mr. Alsberg might perhaps have written
differently.
Mr. Mencken in his review believes me a “prejudiced witness,” because
I--an Anarchist--am opposed to government, whatever its form. Yet the
whole first part of my book entirely disproves the assumption of my
prejudice. I defended the Bolsheviki while still in America, and for
long months in Russia I sought every opportunity to coöperate with them
and to aid in the great task of revolutionary upbuilding. Though an
Anarchist and an anti-governmentalist, I had not come to Russia
expecting to find my ideal realized. I saw in the Bolsheviki the symbol
of the Revolution and I was eager to work with them in spite of our
differences. However, if lack of aloofness from the actualities of life
means that one cannot judge things fairly, then Mr. Mencken is right.
One could not have lived through two years of Communist terror, of a
régime involving the enslavement of the whole people, the annihilation
of the most fundamental values, human and revolutionary, of corruption
and mismanagement, and yet have remained aloof or “impartial” in Mr.
Mencken’s sense. I doubt whether Mr. Mencken, though not an Anarchist,
would have done so. Could he, being human?
In conclusion, the present publication of the chapters missing in the
first edition comes at a very significant period in the life of Russia.
When the “Nep,” Lenin’s new economic policy, was introduced, there rose
the hope of a better day, of a gradual abolition of the policies of
terror and persecution. The Communist dictatorship seemed inclined to
relax its strangle-hold upon the thoughts and lives of the people. But
the hope was short-lived. Since the death of Lenin the Bolsheviki have
returned to the terror of the worst days of their régime. Despotism,
fearing for its power, seeks safety in bloodshed. More timely even than
in 1922 is my book to-day.
When the first series of my articles on Russia appeared, in 1922, and
later when my book was published, I was bitterly attacked and denounced
by American radicals of almost every camp. But I felt confident that the
time would come when the mask would be torn from the false face of
Bolshevism and the great delusion exposed. The time has come even sooner
than I anticipated. In most civilized lands--in France, England,
Germany, in the Scandinavian and Latin countries, even in America the
fog of blind faith is gradually lifting. The reactionary character of
the Bolshevik régime is being realized by the masses, its terrorism and
persecution of non-Communist opinion condemned. The torture of the
political victims of the dictatorship in the prisons of Russia, in the
concentration camps of the frozen North and in Siberian exile, is
rousing the conscience of the more progressive elements the world over.
In almost every country societies for the defense and aid of the
politicals imprisoned in Russia have been formed, with the object of
securing their liberation and the establishment of freedom of opinion
and expression in Russia.
If my work will help in these efforts to throw light upon the real
situation in Russia and to awaken the world to the true character of
Bolshevism and the fatality of dictatorship--be it Fascist or
Communist--I shall bear with equanimity the misunderstanding and
misrepresentation of foe or friend. And I shall not regret the travail
and struggle of spirit that produced this work, which now, after many
vicissitudes, is at last complete in print.
EMMA GOLDMAN.
Berlin, June, 1924.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE vii
CHAPTER
I. ODESSA 1
II. RETURNING TO MOSCOW 13
III. BACK IN PETROGRAD 27
IV. ARCHANGEL AND RETURN 41
V. DEATH AND FUNERAL OF PETER
KROPOTKIN 54
VI. KRONSTADT 65
VII. PERSECUTION OF ANARCHISTS 78
VIII. TRAVELLING SALESMEN OF THE
REVOLUTION 95
IX. EDUCATION AND CULTURE 110
X. EXPLOITING THE FAMINE 130
XI. THE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC RESORTS
TO DEPORTATION 136
XII. AFTERWORD 144
MY FURTHER DISILLUSIONMENT
IN RUSSIA
MY FURTHER DISILLUSIONMENT IN RUSSIA
CHAPTER I
ODESSA
At the numerous stations between Kiev and Odessa we frequently had to
wait for days before we managed to make connections with trains going
south. We employed our leisure in visiting the small towns and villages,
and formed many acquaintances. The markets were especially of interest
to us.
In the Kiev province by far the greater part of the population is
Jewish. They had suffered many pogroms and were now living in constant
terror of their repetition. But the will to live is indestructible,
particularly in the Jew; otherwise centuries of persecution and
slaughter would long since have destroyed the race. Its peculiar
perseverance was manifest everywhere: the Jews continued to trade as if
nothing had happened. The news that Americans were in town would
quickly gather about us crowds of people anxious to hear of the New
World. To them it was still a “new” world, of which they were as
ignorant as they had been fifty years before. But not only
America--Russia itself was a sealed book to them. They knew that it was
a country of pogroms, that some incomprehensible thing called revolution
had happened, and that the Bolsheviki would not let them ply their
trade. Even the younger element in the more distant villages was not
much better informed.
The difference between a famished population and one having access to
food supplies was very noticeable. Between Kiev and Odessa products were
extremely cheap as compared with northern Russia. Butter, for instance,
was 250 rubles a pound as against 3,000 in Petrograd; sugar 350 rubles,
while in Moscow it was 5,000. White flour, almost impossible to obtain
in the capitals, was here sold at 80 rubles a pound. Yet all along the
journey we were besieged at the stations by hungry people, begging for
food. The country possessed plenty of supplies, but evidently the
average person had no means of purchase. Especially terrible was the
sight of the emaciated and ragged children, pleading for a crust of
bread at the car windows.
While in the neighbourhood of Zhmerenka we received the appalling news
of the retreat of the Twelfth Army and the quick advance of the Polish
forces. It was a veritable rout in which the Bolsheviki lost great
stores of food and medical supplies, of which Russia stood so much in
need. The Polish operations and the Wrangel attacks from the Crimea
threatened to cut our journey short. It had been our original purpose to
visit the Caucasus but the new developments made travel farther than
Odessa impracticable. We still hoped, however, to continue our trip
provided we could secure an extension of time for our car permit, which
was to expire on October 1st.
We reached Odessa just after a fire had completely destroyed the main
telegraph and electric stations, putting the city in total darkness. As
it would require considerable time to make repairs, the situation
increased the nervousness of the city, for darkness favoured
counter-revolutionary plots. Rumours were afloat of Kiev having been
taken by the Poles and of the approach of Wrangel.
It was our custom to pay our first official visit to the _Ispolkom_
(Executive Committee) in order to familiarize ourselves with the
situation and the general work scheme of the local institutions. In
Odessa there was a _Revkom_ instead, indicating that the affairs of the
city had not yet been sufficiently organized to establish a Soviet and
its Executive Committee. The Chairman of the _Revkom_ was a young man,
not over thirty, with a hard face. After scrutinizing our documents
carefully and learning the objects of our mission he stated that he
could not be of any assistance to us. The situation in Odessa was
precarious, and as he was busy with many pressing matters, the
Expedition would have to look out for itself. He gave us permission,
however, to visit the Soviet institutions and to collect whatever we
might be able to procure. He did not consider the Petrograd Museum and
its work of much importance. He was an ordinary worker appointed to a
high government position, not over-intelligent and apparently
antagonistic to everything “intellectual.”
The prospects did not look promising, but, of course, we could not leave
Odessa without making a serious effort to collect the rich historical
material which we knew to be in the city. Returning from the _Revkom_ we
happened to meet a group of young people who recognized us, they having
lived in America before. They assured us that we could expect no aid
from the Chairman who was known as a narrow fanatic embittered against
the _intelligentsia_. Several of the group offered to introduce us to
other officials who would be able and willing to assist us in our
efforts. We learned that the Chairman of Public Economy in Odessa was an
Anarchist, and that the head of the Metal Trade Unions was also an
Anarchist. The information held out hope that we might accomplish
something in Odessa, after all.
We lost no time in visiting the two men, but the result was not
encouraging. Both were willing to do everything in their power, but
warned us to expect no returns because Odessa, as they phrased it, was
The City of Sabotage.
It must unfortunately be admitted that our experience justified that
characterization. I had seen a great deal of sabotage in various Soviet
institutions in every city I had visited. Everywhere the numerous
employees deliberately wasted their time while thousands of applicants
spent days and weeks in the corridors and offices without receiving the
least attention. The greater part of Russia did nothing else but stand
in line, waiting for the bureaucrats, big and little, to admit them to
their sanctums. But bad as conditions were in other cities, nowhere did
I find such systematic sabotage as in Odessa. From the highest to the
lowest Soviet worker everyone was busy with something other than the
work entrusted to him. Office hours were supposed to begin at ten, but
as a rule no official could be found in any of the departments till noon
or even later. At three in the afternoon the institutions closed, and
therefore very little work was accomplished.
We remained in Odessa two weeks, but so far as material collected
through official channels was concerned, we got practically nothing.
Whatever we accomplished was due to the aid of private persons and
members of outlawed political parties. From them we received valuable
material concerning the persecution of the Mensheviki and the labour
organizations where the influence of the former was strongest. The
management of several unions had been entirely suspended at the time we
arrived in Odessa, and there began a complete reorganization of them by
the Communists, for the purpose of eliminating all opposing elements.
Among the interesting people we met in Odessa were the Zionists,
including some well-known literary and professional men. It was at
Doctor N----’s house that we met them. The Doctor himself was the owner
of a sanatorium located on a beautiful spot overlooking the Black Sea
and considered the best in the South. The institution had been
nationalized by the Bolsheviki, but Doctor N---- was left in charge and
was even permitted to take in private patients. In return for that
privilege he had to board and give medical attention to Soviet patients
for one third of the established price.
Late into the night we discussed the Russian situation with the guests
at the Doctor’s house. Most of them were antagonistic to the Bolshevik
régime. “Lenin let loose the motto ‘Rob the robbers,’ and at least here
in the Ukraina his followers have carried out the order to the letter,”
said the Doctor. It was the general opinion of the gathering that the
confusion and ruin which resulted were due to that policy. It robbed the
old bourgeoisie but did not benefit the workers. The Doctor cited his
sanatorium as an illustration. When the Bolsheviki took it over they
declared that the proletariat was to own and enjoy the place, but not a
single worker had since been received as patient, not even a proletarian
Communist. The people the Soviet sent to the sanatorium were members of
the new bureaucracy, usually the high officials. The Chairman of the
Tcheka, for instance, who suffered from nervous breakdown, had been in
the institution several times. “He works sixteen hours a day sending
people to their death,” the Doctor commented. “You can easily imagine
how it feels to take care of such a man.”
One of the Bundist writers present held that the Bolsheviki were trying
to imitate the French Revolution. Corruption was rampant; it put in the
shade the worst crimes of the Jacobins. Not a day passed but that people
were arrested for trading in Tsarist or Kerensky money; yet it was an
open secret that the Chairman of the Tcheka himself speculated in
valuta. The depravity of the Tcheka was a matter of common knowledge.
People were shot for slight offences, while those who could afford to
give bribes were freed even after they had been sentenced to death. It
repeatedly happened that the rich relatives of an arrested man would be
notified by the Tcheka of his execution. A few weeks later, after they
had somewhat recovered from their shock and grief, they would be
informed that the report of the man’s death was erroneous, that he was
alive and could be liberated by paying a fine, usually a very high one.
Of course, the relatives would strain every effort to raise the money.
Then they would suddenly be arrested for attempted bribery, their money
confiscated and the prisoner shot.
One of the Doctor’s guests, who lived in the “Tcheka Street” told of the
refinements of terrorism practised to awe the population. Almost daily
he witnessed the same sights: early in the morning mounted Tchekists
would dash by, shooting into the air--a warning that all windows must be
closed. Then came motor trucks loaded with the doomed. They lay in rows,
faces downward, their hands tied, soldiers standing over them with
rifles. They were being carried to execution outside the city. A few
hours later the trucks would return empty save for a few soldiers. Blood
dripped from the wagons, leaving a crimson streak on the pavement all
the way to the Tcheka headquarters.
It was not possible that Moscow did not know about these things, the
Zionists asserted. The fear of the central power was too great to permit
of the local Tcheka doing anything not approved by Moscow. But it was no
wonder that the Bolsheviki had to resort to such methods. A small
political party trying to control a population of 150,000,000, which
bitterly hated the Communists, could not hope to maintain itself
without such an institution as the Tcheka. The latter was characteristic
of the basic principles of Bolshevik conception: the country must be
_forced_ to be _saved_ by the Communist Party. The pretext that the
Bolsheviki were defending the Revolution was a hollow mockery. As a
matter of fact, they had entirely destroyed it.
It had grown so late that the members of our expedition could not return
to the car, fearing difficulty in locating it, because of the dark
night. We therefore remained at the home of our host, to meet next day a
group of men of national reputation, including Bialeck, the greatest
living Jewish poet, known to Jews the world over. There was also present
a literary investigator, who had made a special study of the question of
pogroms. He had visited seventy-two cities, collecting the richest
material to be had on the subject. It was his opinion that, contrary to
accepted notion, the pogrom wave during the civil war period, between
the years 1918 and 1921, under the various Ukrainian governments, was
even worse than the most terrible Jewish massacres under the Tsars.
There had taken place no pogroms during the Bolshevik régime, but he
believed that the atmosphere created by them intensified the anti-Jewish
spirit and would some day break out in the wholesale slaughter of the
Jews. He did not think that the Bolsheviki were particularly concerned
in defending his race. In certain localities of the South the Jews,
constantly exposed to assault and pillage by robber bands and
occasionally by individual Red soldiers, had appealed to the Soviet
Government for permission to organize themselves for self-defence,
requesting that arms be given them. But in all such cases the Government
refused.
It was the general sentiment of the Zionists that the continuation of
the Bolsheviki in power meant the destruction of the Jews. The Russian
Jews, as a rule, were not workers. From time immemorial they had engaged
in trade; but business had been destroyed by the Communists, and before
the Jew could be turned into a worker he would deteriorate, as a race,
and become extinct. Specific Jewish culture, the most priceless thing to
the Zionists, was frowned upon by the Bolsheviki. That phase of the
situation seemed to affect them even more deeply than pogroms.
These intellectual Jews were not of the proletarian class. They were
bourgeois without any revolutionary spirit. Their criticism of the
Bolsheviki did not appeal to me for it was a criticism from the Right.
If I had still believed in the Communists as the true champions of the
Revolution I could have defended them against the Zionist complaints.
But I myself had lost faith in the revolutionary integrity of the
Bolsheviki.
CHAPTER II
RETURNING TO MOSCOW
In a country where speech and press are so completely suppressed as in
Russia it is not surprising that the human mind should feed on fancy and
out of it weave the most incredible stories. Already, during my first
months in Petrograd, I was amazed at the wild rumours that circulated in
the city and were believed even by intelligent people. The Soviet press
was inaccessible to the population at large and there was no other news
medium. Every morning Bolshevik bulletins and papers were pasted on the
street corners, but in the bitter cold few people cared to pause to read
them. Besides, there was little faith in the Communist press. Petrograd
was therefore completely cut off, not only from the Western world but
even from the rest of Russia. An old revolutionist once said to me: “We
not only don’t know what is going on in the world or in Moscow; we are
not even aware of what is happening in the next street.” However, the
human mind will not be bottled up all the time. It must have and
generally finds an outlet. Rumours of attempted raids on Petrograd,
stories that Zinoviev had been ducked in “Sovietsky soup” by some
factory workers and that Moscow was captured by the Whites were afloat.
Of Odessa it was related that enemy ships had been sighted off the
coast, and there was much talk of an impending attack. Yet when we
arrived we found the city quiet and leading its ordinary life. Except
for the large markets, Odessa impressed me as a complete picture of
Soviet rule. But we had not been gone a day from the city when, on our
return to Moscow, we again met the same rumours. The success of the
Polish forces and the hasty retreat of the Red Army furnished fuel to
the over-excited imagination of the people. Everywhere the roads were
blocked with military trains and the stations filled with soldiers
spreading the panic of the rout.
At several points the Soviet authorities were getting ready to evacuate
at the first approach of danger. The population, however, could not do
that. At the railroad stations along the route groups of people stood
about discussing the impending attack. Fighting in Rostov, other cities
already in the hands of Wrangel, bandits holding up trains and blowing
up bridges, and similar stories kept everybody in a panic. It was of
course impossible to verify the rumours. But we were informed that we
could not continue to Rostov-on-the-Don, that city being already within
the military zone. We were advised to start for Kiev and thence return
to Moscow. It was hard to give up our plan of reaching Baku, but we had
no choice. We could not venture too far, especially as our car permit
was to expire within a short time. We decided to return to Moscow via
Kiev.
When we left Petrograd, we had promised to bring back from the South
some sugar, white flour, and cereals for our starved friends who had
lacked these necessities for three years. On the way to Kiev and Odessa
we found provisions comparatively cheap; but now the prices had risen
several hundred per cent. From an Odessa friend we learned of a place
twenty versts [about thirteen miles] from Rakhno, a small village near
Zhmerenka, where sugar, honey, and apple jelly could be had at small
cost. We were not supposed to transport provisions to Petrograd, though
our car was immune from the usual inspection by the Tcheka. But as we
had no intention of selling anything, we felt justified in bringing some
food for people who had been starving for years. We had our car detached
at Zhmerenka, and two men of the expedition and myself went to Rakhno.
It was no easy matter to induce the Zhmerenka peasants to take us to the
next village. Would we give them salt, nails, or some other merchandise?
Otherwise they would not go. We lost the best part of a day in a vain
search, but at last we found a man who consented to drive us to the
place in return for Kerensky rubles. The journey reminded me of the
rocky road of good intentions: we were heaved up and down, jerked back
and forth, like so many dice. After a seemingly endless trip, aching in
every limb, we reached the village. It was poor and squalid, Jews
constituting the main population. The peasants lived along the Rakhno
road and visited the place only on market days. The Soviet officials
were Gentiles.
We carried a letter of introduction to a woman physician, the sister of
our Odessa Bundist friend. She was to direct us how to go about
procuring the provisions. Arriving at the Doctor’s house we found her
living in two small rooms, ill kept and unclean, with a dirty baby
crawling about. The woman was busy making apple jelly. She was of the
type of disillusioned intellectual now so frequently met in Russia. From
her conversation I learned that she and her husband, also a physician,
had been detailed to that desolate spot. They were completely isolated
from all intellectual life, having neither papers, books, nor
associates. Her husband would begin his rounds early in the morning and
return late at night, while she had to attend to her baby and household,
besides taking care of her own patients. She had only recently recovered
from typhus and it was hard for her to chop wood, carry water, wash and
cook and look after her sick. But what made their life unbearable was
the general antagonism to the intelligentsia. They had it constantly
thrown up to them that they were bourgeois and counter-revolutionists,
and they were charged with sabotage. It was only for the sake of her
child that she continued the sordid life, the woman said; “otherwise it
were better to be dead.”
A young woman, poorly clad, but clean and neat, came to the house and
was introduced as a school teacher. She at once got into conversation
with me. She was a Communist, she announced, who was “doing her own
thinking.” “Moscow may be autocratic,” she said, “but the authorities in
the towns and villages here beat Moscow. They do as they please.” The
provincial officials were flotsam washed ashore by the great storm. They
had no revolutionary past--they had known no suffering for their ideals.
They were just slaves in positions of power. If she had not been a
Communist herself, she would have been eliminated long ago, but she was
determined to make a fight against the abuses in her district. As to the
schools, they were doing as best they could under the circumstances, but
that was very little. They lacked everything. It was not so bad in the
summer, but in the winter the children had to stay home because the
class rooms were not heated. Was it true that Moscow was publishing
glowing accounts of the great reduction in illiteracy? Well, it was
certainly exaggerated. In her village the progress was very slow. She
had often wondered whether there was really much to so-called education.
Supposing the peasants should learn to read and write. Would that make
them better and kinder men? If so, why is there so much cruelty,
injustice, and strife in countries where people are not illiterate? The
Russian peasant cannot read or write, but he has an innate sense of
right and beauty. He can do wonderful things with his hands and he is no
more brutal than the rest of the world.
I was interested to find such an unusual viewpoint in one so young and
in such an out-of-the-way place. The little teacher could not have been
more than twenty-five. I encouraged her to speak of her reactions to the
general policies and methods of her party. Did she approve of them, did
she think them dictated by the revolutionary process? She was not a
politician, she said; she did not know. She could judge only by the
results--and they were far from satisfactory. But she had faith in the
Revolution. It had uprooted the very soil, it had given life a new
meaning. Even the peasants were not the same--no one was the same.
Something great must come of all the confusion.
The arrival of the Doctor turned the conversation into other channels.
When informed of our errand he went in search of some tradesmen, but
presently he returned to say that nothing could be done: it was the eve
of Yom Kippur, and every Jew was in the synagogue. Heathen that I am, I
did not know that I had come on the eve of that most solemn fast day. As
we could not remain another day, we decided to return without having
accomplished our purpose.
Here a new difficulty arose. Our driver would not budge unless we got an
armed guard to accompany us. He was afraid of bandits: two nights
previously, he said, they had attacked travellers in the forest. It
became necessary to apply to the Chairman of the Militia. The latter was
willing to help us, but--all his men were in the synagogue, praying.
Would we wait until the services were over?
At last the people filed out from the synagogue and we were given two
armed militiamen. It was rather hard on those Jewish boys, for it was a
sin to ride on Yom Kippur. But no inducement could persuade the peasant
to venture through the woods without military protection. Life is indeed
a crazy quilt made of patches. The peasant, a true Ukrainian, would not
have hesitated a moment to beat and rob Jews in a pogrom; yet he felt
secure in the protection of Jews against the possible attack of his own
co-religionists.
We rode into the bright fall night, the sky dotted with stars. It was
soothingly still, with all nature asleep. The driver and our escort
discussed the bandits, competing in bloodcurdling stories of the
outrages committed by them. As we reached the dark forest I reflected
that their loud voices would be the signal of our approach for any
highwaymen who might be lying in wait. The soldiers stood up in the
wagon, their rifles ready for action; the peasant crossed himself and
lashed the horses into a mad gallop, keeping up the pace till we reached
the open road again. It was all very exciting but we met no bandits.
They must have been sabotaging that night.
We reached the station too late to make connections and had to wait
until the morning. I spent the night in the company of a girl in soldier
uniform, a Communist. She had been at every front, she declared, and had
fought many bandits. She was a sort of Playboy of the Eastern World,
romancing by the hour. Her favourite stories were of shooting. “A bunch
of counter-revolutionists, White Guards and speculators,” she would say;
“they should all be shot.” I thought of the little school teacher, the
lovely spirit in the village, giving of herself in hard and painful
service to the children, to beauty in life; and here, her comrade, also
a young woman, but hardened and cruel, lacking all sense of
revolutionary values--both children of the same school, yet so unlike
each other.
In the morning we rejoined the Expedition in Zhmerenka and proceeded to
Kiev, where we arrived by the end of September, to find the city
completely changed. The panic of the Twelfth Army was in the air; the
enemy was supposed to be only 150 versts [about ninety-nine miles] away
and many Soviet Departments were being evacuated, adding to the general
uneasiness and fright. I visited Wetoshkin, the Chairman of the
_Revkom_, and his secretary. The latter inquired about Odessa, anxious
to know how they were doing there, whether they had suppressed trade,
and how the Soviet Departments were working. I told him of the general
sabotage, of the speculation and the horrors of the Tcheka. As to trade,
the stores were closed and all signs were down, but the markets were
doing big business. “Indeed? Well, you must tell this to Comrade
Wetoshkin,” the Secretary cried gleefully. “What do you
suppose--Rakovsky was here and told us perfect wonders about the
accomplishments of Odessa. He put us on the rack because we had not done
as much. You must tell Wetoshkin all about Odessa; he will enjoy the
joke on Rakovsky.”
I met Wetoshkin on the stairs as I was leaving the office. He looked
thinner than when I had last seen him, and very worried. When asked
about the impending danger, he made light of it. “We are not going to
evacuate,” he said, “we remain right here. It is the only way to
reassure the public.” He, too, inquired about Odessa. I promised to call
again later, as I had no time just then, but I did not have the chance
to see Wetoshkin again to furnish that joke on Rakovsky. We left Kiev
within two days.
At Bryansk, an industrial centre not far away from Moscow, we came upon
large posters announcing that Makhno was again with the Bolsheviki, and
that he was distinguishing himself by daring exploits against Wrangel.
It was startling news, in view of the fact that the Soviet papers had
constantly painted Makhno as a bandit, counter-revolutionary, and
traitor. What had happened to bring about this change of attitude and
tone? The thrilling adventure of having our car held up and ourselves
carried off as prisoners by the Makhnovtsi did not come off. By the time
we reached the district where Makhno had been operating in September, he
was cut off from us. It would have been very interesting to meet the
peasant leader face to face and hear at first hand what he was about.
He was undoubtedly the most picturesque and vital figure brought to the
fore by the Revolution in the South--and now he was again with the
Bolsheviki. What had happened? There was no way of knowing until we
should reach Moscow.
From a copy of the _Izvestia_ that fell into our hands en route, we
learned the sad news of the death of John Reed. It was a great blow to
those of us who had known Jack. The last time I saw him was at the guest
house, the Hôtel International, in Petrograd. He had just returned from
Finland, after his imprisonment there, and was ill in bed. I was
informed that Jack was alone and without proper care, and I went up to
nurse him. He was in a bad state, all swollen and with a nasty rash on
his arms, the result of malnutrition. In Finland he had been fed almost
exclusively on dried fish and had been otherwise wretchedly treated. He
was a very sick man, but his spirit remained the same. No matter how
radically one disagreed with Jack, one could not help loving his big,
generous spirit, and now he was dead, his life laid down in the service
of the Revolution, as he believed.
Arriving in Moscow I immediately went to the guest house, the Delovoi
Dvor, where stayed Louise Bryant, Jack’s wife. I found her terribly
distraught and glad to see one who had known Jack so well. We talked of
him, of his illness, his suffering and his untimely death. She was much
embittered because, she claimed, Jack had been ordered to Baku to attend
the Congress of the Eastern peoples when he was already very ill. He
returned a dying man. But even then he could have been saved had he been
given competent medical attention. He lay in his room for a week without
the doctors making up their mind as to the nature of his illness. Then
it was too late. I could well understand Louise’s feelings, though I was
convinced that everything humanly possible had been done for Reed. I
knew that whatever else might be said against the Bolsheviki, it could
not be charged that they neglect those who serve them. On the contrary,
they are generous masters. But Louise had lost what was most precious to
her.
During the conversation she asked me about my experiences and I told her
of the conflict within me, of the desperate effort I had been making to
find my way out of the chaos, and that now the fog was lifting, and I
was beginning to differentiate between the Bolsheviki and the
Revolution. Ever since I had come to Russia I had begun to sense that
all was not well with the Bolshevik régime, and I felt as if caught in a
trap. “How uncanny!” Louise suddenly gripped my arm and stared at me
with wild eyes. “‘Caught in a trap’ were the very words Jack repeated in
his delirium.” I realized that poor Jack had also begun to see beneath
the surface. His was the free, unfettered spirit striving for the real
values of life. It would be chafed when bound by a dogma which
proclaimed itself immutable. Had Jack lived he would no doubt have clung
valiantly to the thing which had caught him in the trap. But in the face
of death the mind of man sometimes becomes luminous: it sees in a flash
what in man’s normal condition is obscure and hidden from him. It was
not at all strange to me that Jack should have felt as I did, as
everyone who is not a zealot must feel in Russia--caught in a trap.
CHAPTER III
BACK IN PETROGRAD
The Expedition was to proceed to Petrograd the next day, but Louise
begged me to remain for the funeral. Sunday, October 23rd, several
friends rode with her to the Trade Union House where Reed’s body lay in
state. I accompanied Louise when the procession started for the Red
Square. There were speeches--much cold stereotyped declamation about the
value of Jack Reed to the Revolution and to the Communist Party. It all
sounded mechanical, far removed from the spirit of the dead man in the
fresh grave. One speaker only dwelt on the real Jack Reed--Alexandra
Kollontay. She had caught the artist’s soul, infinitely greater in its
depth and beauty than any dogma. She used the occasion to admonish her
comrades. “We call ourselves Communists,” she said, “but are we really
that? Do we not rather draw the life essence from those who come to us,
and when they are no longer of use, we let them fall by the wayside,
neglected and forgotten? Our Communism and our comradeship are dead
letters if we do not give out of ourselves to those who need us. Let us
beware of such Communism. It slays the best in our ranks. Jack Reed was
among the best.”
The sincere words of Kollontay displeased the high Party members.
Bukharin knitted his brows, Reinstein fidgeted about, others grumbled.
But I was glad of what Kollontay had said. Not only because what she
said expressed Jack Reed better than anything else said that day, but
also because it brought her nearer to me. In America we had repeatedly
tried to meet but never succeeded. When I reached Moscow, in March,
1920, Kollontay was ill. I saw her only for a little while before I
returned to Petrograd. We spoke of the things that were troubling me.
During the conversation Kollontay remarked: “Yes, we have many dull
sides in Russia.” “Dull,” I queried; “nothing more?” I was unpleasantly
affected by what seemed to me a rather superficial view. But I reassured
myself that Kollontay’s inadequate English caused her to characterize as
“dull” what to me was a complete collapse of all idealism.
Among other things Kollontay had then said was that I could find a
great field for work among the women as very little had been attempted
up to that time to enlighten and broaden them. We parted in a friendly
manner, but I did not sense in her the same feeling of warmth and depth
that I had found in Angelica Balabanova. Now at the open grave of Reed
her words brought her closer to me. She, too, felt deeply, I thought.
Louise Bryant had fallen in a dead faint and was lying face downward on
the damp earth. After considerable effort we got her to her feet.
Hysterical, she was taken in the waiting auto to her hotel and put to
bed. Outside, the sky was clothed in gray and was weeping upon the fresh
grave of Jack Reed. And all of Russia seemed a fresh grave.
While in Moscow we found the explanation of the sudden change of tone of
the Communist press toward Makhno. The Bolsheviki, hard pressed by
Wrangel, sought the aid of the Ukrainian _povstantsi_ army. A
politico-military agreement was about to be entered into between the
Soviet Government and Nestor Makhno. The latter was to coöperate fully
with the Red Army in the campaign against the counter-revolutionary
enemy. On their side, the Bolsheviki accepted the following conditions
of Makhno:
(1) The immediate liberation and termination of persecution of all
Makhnovtsi and Anarchists, excepting cases of armed rebellion
against the Soviet Government.
(2) Fullest liberty of speech, press and propaganda for Makhnovtsi
and Anarchists, without, however, the right of calling for armed
uprisings against the Soviet Government, and subject to military
censorship.
(3) Free participation in Soviet elections; the right of Makhnovtsi
and Anarchists to be candidates, and to hold the fifth
All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets.
The agreement also included the right of the Anarchists to call a
congress in Kharkov, and preparations were being made to hold it in the
month of October. Many Anarchists were getting ready to attend it and
were elated over the outlook. But my faith in the Bolsheviki had
received too many shocks. Not only did I believe that the Congress would
not take place, but I saw in it a Bolshevik ruse to gather all the
Anarchists in one place in order to destroy them. Yet the fact was that
several Anarchists, among them the well-known writer and lecturer Volin,
had already been released and were now free in Moscow.
* * * * *
We left for Petrograd to deliver to the Museum the carload of precious
material we had gathered in the South. More valuable still was the
experience the members of the Expedition had been enriched with through
personal contact with people of various shades of opinion, or of no
opinion, and the impressions of the social panorama as it was being
unrolled day by day. That was a treasure of far greater worth than any
paper documents. But better insight into the situation intensified my
inner struggle. I longed to close my eyes and ears--not to see the
accusing hand which pointed to the blind errors and conscious crimes
that were stifling the Revolution. I wanted not to hear the compelling
voice of facts, which no personal attachments could silence any longer.
I knew that the Revolution and the Bolsheviki, proclaimed as one and the
same, were opposites, antagonistic in aim and purpose. The Revolution
had its roots deep down in the life of the people. The Communist State
was based on a scheme forcibly applied by a political party. In the
contest the Revolution was being slain, but the slayer also was gasping
for breath. I had known in America that the Interventionists, the
blockade and the conspiracy of the Imperialists were wrecking the
Revolution. But what I had not known then was the part the Bolsheviki
were playing in the process. Now I realized that they were the
grave-diggers.
I was oppressively conscious of the great debt I owed to the workers of
Europe and America: I should tell them the truth about Russia. But how
could I speak out when the country was still besieged on several fronts?
It would mean working into the hands of Poland and Wrangel. For the
first time in my life I refrained from exposing grave social evils. I
felt as if I were betraying the trust of the masses, particularly of the
American workers, whose faith I dearly cherished.
Arrived in Petrograd, I went to live temporarily in the Hôtel
International. I intended to find a room somewhere else, determined to
accept no privileges at the hands of the Government. The International
was filled with foreign visitors. Many had no idea of why or wherefore
they had come. They had simply flocked to the land they believed to be
the paradise of the workers. I remember my experience with a certain I.
W. W. chap. He had brought to Russia a small supply of provisions,
needles, thread, and other similar necessities. He insisted that I let
him share with me. “But you will need every bit of it yourself,” I told
him. Of course, he knew there was great scarcity in Russia. But the
proletariat was in control and as a worker he would receive everything
he needed. Or he would “get a piece of land and build a homestead.” He
had been fifteen years in the Wobbly movement and he “didn’t mind
settling down.” What was there to say to such an innocent? I had not the
courage to disillusion him. I knew he would learn soon enough. It was
pathetic, though, to see such people flood starving Russia. Yet they
could not do her the harm the other kind was doing--creatures from the
four corners of the earth to whom the Revolution represented a gold
mine. There were many of them in the International. They all came with
legends of the wonderful growth of Communism in America, Ireland, China,
Palestine. Such stories were balm to the hungry souls of the men in
power. They welcomed them as an old maid welcomes the flattery of her
first suitor. They sent these impostors back home well provided
financially and equipped to sing the praises of the Workers’ and
Peasants’ Republic. It was both tragic and comic to observe the breed
all inflated with “important conspiratory missions.”
I received many visitors in my room, among them my little neighbour from
the Astoria with her two children, a Communist from the French Section,
and several of the foreigners. My neighbour looked sick and worn since I
had seen her last in June, 1920. “Are you ill?” I inquired on one
occasion. “Not exactly,” she said; “I am hungry most of the time and
exhausted. The summer has been hard: as inspectress of children’s homes
I have to do much walking. I return home completely exhausted. My
nine-year-old girl goes to a children’s colony, but I would not risk
sending my baby boy there because of his experience last year, when he
was so neglected that he nearly died. I had to keep him in the city all
summer, which made it doubly hard for me. Still, it would not have been
so bad had it not been for the _subotniki_ and _voskresniki_ (Communist
Saturday and Sunday voluntary work-days). They drain my energies
completely. You know how they began--like a picnic, with trumpets and
singing, marching and festivities. We all felt inspired, especially when
we saw our leading comrades take pick and shovel and pitch in. But that
is all a matter of the past. The _subotniki_ have become gray and
spiritless, beneath an obligation imposed without regard to
inclination, physical fitness, or the amount of other work one has to
do. Nothing ever succeeds in our poor Russia. If I could only get out to
Sweden, Germany, anywhere, far away from it all.” Poor little woman, she
was not the only one who wanted to forsake the country. It was their
love for Russia and their bitter disappointment which made most people
anxious to run away.
Several other Communists I knew in Petrograd were even more embittered.
Whenever they called on me they would repeat their determination to get
out of the Party. They were suffocating--they said--in the atmosphere of
intrigue, blind hatred, and senseless persecution. But it requires
considerable will power to leave the Party which absolutely controls the
destiny of more than a hundred million people, and my Communist visitors
lacked the strength. But that did not lessen their misery, which
affected even their physical condition, although they received the best
rations and they had their meals at the exclusive Smolny dining room. I
remember my surprise on first finding that there were two separate
restaurants in Smolny, one where wholesome and sufficient food was
served to the important members of the Petrograd Soviet and of the
Third International, while the other was for the ordinary employees of
the Party. At one time there had even been three restaurants. Somehow
the Kronstadt sailors learned of it. They came down in a body and closed
two of the eating places. “We made the Revolution that all should share
alike,” they said. Only one restaurant functioned for a time but later
the second was opened. But even in the latter the meals were far
superior to the Sovietsky dining rooms for the “common people.”
Some of the Communists objected to the discrimination. They saw the
blunders, the intrigues, the destruction of life practised in the name
of Communism, but they had not the strength and courage to protest or to
disassociate themselves from the Party responsible for the injustice and
brutality. They would often unburden themselves to me of the matters
they dared not discuss in their own circles. Thus I came to know many
things about the inner workings of the Party and the Third International
that were carefully hidden from the outside world. Among them was the
story of the alleged Finnish White conspiracy, which resulted in the
killing in Petrograd of seven leading Finnish Communists. I had read
about it in the Soviet papers while I was in the Ukraina. I remember my
feeling of renewed impatience with myself that I should be critical of
the Bolshevik régime at a time when counter-revolutionary conspiracies
were still so active. But from my Communist visitors I learned that the
published report was false from beginning to end. It was no White
conspiracy but a fight between two groups of Bolsheviki: the moderate
Finnish Communists in control of the propaganda carried on from
Petrograd, and the Left Wing working in Finland. The Moderates were
Zinoviev adherents and had been put in charge of the work by him. The
Lefts had repeatedly complained to the Third International about the
conservatism and compromises of their comrades in Petrograd and the harm
they were doing to the movement in Finland. They asked that these men be
removed. They were ignored. On the 31st of August, 1920, the Lefts came
to Petrograd and proceeded to the headquarters of the Moderates. At the
session of the latter they demanded that the Executive Committee resign
and turn over all books and accounts to them. Their demand refused, the
young Finnish Communists opened fire, killing seven of their comrades.
The affair was heralded to the world as a counter-revolutionary
conspiracy of White Finns.
The third anniversary of the October Revolution was celebrated November
7th (October 25th old style), on the Uritsky Square. I had seen so many
official demonstrations that they had lost interest for me. Still I went
to the Square hoping that a new note might be sounded. It proved a
rehash of the thing I had heard over and over again. The pageant
especially was a demonstration of Communist poverty in ideas. Kerensky
and his cabinet, Tchernov and the Constituent Assembly, and the storming
of the Winter Palace again served as puppets to bring out in strong
relief the rôle of the Bolsheviki as “saviours of the Revolution.” It
was badly played and poorly staged, and fell flat. To me the celebration
was more like the funeral than the birth of the Revolution.
There was much excitement in Petrograd all through the month of
November. Numerous rumours were afloat about strikes, arrests, and
clashes between workers and soldiery. It was difficult to get at the
facts. But the extraordinary session called by the Party in the First
House of the Soviet indicated a serious situation. In the early part of
the afternoon the whole square in front of the Astoria was lined with
autos of the influential Communists who had been summoned to attend the
special conference. The following morning we learned that in obedience
to the Moscow decree the Petrograd session had decided to mobilize a
number of important Bolshevik workers for the factories and shops. Three
hundred Party members, some of them high government officials and others
holding responsible positions in the Petro-Soviet, were immediately
ordered to work, to prove to the proletariat that Russia was indeed a
Workers’ Government. The plan was expected to allay the growing
discontent of the proletarians and to counteract the influence of the
other political parties among them. Zorin was one of the three hundred.
However, the toilers would not be deceived by this move. They knew that
most of the mobilized men continued to live in the Astoria and came to
work in their autos. They saw them warmly dressed and well shod, while
they themselves were almost naked and living in squalid quarters without
light or heat. The workers resented the pretense. The matter became a
subject of discussion in the shops, and many unpleasant scenes followed.
One woman, a prominent Communist, was so tormented in the factory that
she went into hysterics and had to be taken away. Some of the mobilized
Bolsheviki, among them Zorin and others, were sincere enough, but they
had grown away from the toilers and could not stand the hardships of
factory life. After a few weeks Zorin collapsed and had to be removed to
a place of rest. Though he was generally liked, his collapse was
interpreted by the workers as a ruse to get away from the misery of the
proletarian’s existence. The breach between the masses and the new
Bolshevik bureaucracy had grown too wide. It could not be bridged.
CHAPTER IV
ARCHANGEL AND RETURN
On November 28th the Expedition again got under way, this time with
three members only: Alexander Berkman, the Secretary, and myself. We
travelled by way of Moscow to Archangel, with stops in Vologda and
Yaroslavl. Vologda had been the seat of various foreign embassies,
unofficially engaged in aiding the enemies of the Revolution. We
expected to find historic material there, but we were informed that most
of it had been destroyed or otherwise wasted. The Soviet institutions
were uninteresting: it was a plodding, sleepy provincial town. In
Yaroslavl, where the so-called Savinkov uprising had taken place two
years previously, no significant data were found.
We continued to Archangel. The stories we had heard of the frozen North
made us rather apprehensive. But, much to our relief, we found that city
no colder than Petrograd, and much drier.
The Chairman of the Archangel _Ispolkom_ was a pleasant type of
Communist, not at all officious or stern. As soon as we had stated our
mission he set the telephone going. Every time he reached some official
on the wire he would address him as “dear _tovarishtch_,” and inform him
that “dear _tovarishtchi_ from the Centre” had arrived and must be given
every assistance. He thought that our stay would be profitable because
many important documents had remained after the Allies had withdrawn.
There were files of old newspapers published by the Tchaikovsky
Government and photographs of the brutalities perpetrated upon the
Communists by the Whites. The Chairman himself had lost his whole
family, including his twelve-year-old sister. As he had to leave the
next day to attend the Conference of Soviets in Moscow, he promised to
issue an order giving us access to the archives.
Leaving the _Ispolkom_ to begin our rounds, we were surprised by three
sleighs waiting for us, thanks to the thoughtfulness of the Chairman.
Tucked up under fur covers and with bells tinkling, each member of the
Expedition started in a different direction to cover the departments
assigned to him. The Archangel Soviet officials appeared to have great
respect for the “Centre”; the word acted like magic, opening every
door.
The head of the Department of Education was a hospitable and kindly man.
After explaining to me in detail the work done in his institution he
called to his office a number of employees, informed them of the purpose
of the Expedition and asked them to prepare the material they could
gather for the Museum. Among those Soviet workers was a nun, a
pleasant-faced young woman. What a strange thing, I thought, to find a
nun in a Soviet office! The Chairman noticed my surprise. He had quite a
number of nuns in his department, he said. When the monasteries had been
nationalized the poor women had no place to go. He conceived the idea of
giving them a chance to do useful work in the new world. He had found no
cause to regret his action: he did not convert the nuns to Communism,
but they became very faithful and industrious workers, and the younger
ones had even expanded a little. He invited me to visit the little art
studio where several nuns were employed.
The studio was a rather unusual place--not so much because of its
artistic value as on account of the people who worked there; two old
nuns who had spent forty and twenty-five years, respectively, in
monasteries; a young White officer, and an elderly workingman. The last
two had been arrested as counter-revolutionists and were condemned to
death, but the Chairman rescued them in order to put them to useful
work. He wanted to give an opportunity to those who through ignorance or
accident were the enemies of the Revolution. A revolutionary period, he
remarked, necessitated stern measures, even violence; but other methods
should be tried first. He had many in his department who had been
considered counter-revolutionary, but now they were all doing good work.
It was the most extraordinary thing I had heard from a Communist.
“Aren’t you considered a sentimental bourgeois?” I asked. “Yes, indeed,”
he replied smilingly, “but that is nothing. The main thing is that I
have been able to prove that my sentimentalism works, as you can see for
yourself.”
The carpenter was the artist of the studio. He had never been taught,
but he did beautiful carving and was a master in every kind of wood
work. The nuns made colour drawings of flowers and vegetables, which
were used for demonstration by lecturers in the villages. They also
painted posters, mainly for the children’s festivals.
I visited the studio several times alone so that I might speak freely
to the carpenter and the nuns. They had little understanding of the
elemental facts that had pulled them out of their moorings. The
carpenter lamented that times were hard because he was not permitted to
sell his handiwork. “I used to earn a good bit of money, but now I
hardly get enough to eat,” he would say. The sisters did not complain;
they accepted their fate as the will of God. Yet there was a change even
in them. Instead of being shut away in a nunnery they were brought in
touch with real life, and they had become more human. Their expression
was less forbidding, their work showed signs of kinship with the world
around them. I noticed it particularly in their drawings of children and
children’s games. There was a tenderness about them that spoke of the
long-suppressed mother instinct struggling for expression. The former
White officer was the most intelligent of the four--he had gone through
Life’s crucible. He had learned the folly and crime of intervention, he
said, and would never lend his aid to it again. What had convinced him?
The interventionists themselves. They had been in Archangel and they
carried on as if they owned the city. The Allies had promised much, but
they had done nothing except enrich a few persons who speculated in the
supplies intended to benefit the population. Everyone gradually turned
against the interventionists. I wondered how many of the countless ones
shot as counter-revolutionists would have been won over to the new
régime and would now be doing useful work if somebody had saved their
lives.
I had seen so many show schools that I decided to say nothing about
visiting educational institutions until some unexpected moment when one
could take them by surprise. For our first Saturday in Archangel a
special performance of Leonid Andreyev’s play, “Savva,” had been
arranged. For a provincial theatre, considering also the lack of
preparation, the drama was fairly well done.
After the performance I told the Chairman of the Department, X----, that
I would like to visit his schools early next morning. Without hesitation
he consented and even offered to call for the other members of the
Expedition. We visited several schools and in point of cleanliness,
comfort, and general cheerfulness, I found them a revelation. It was
also beautiful to see the fond relationship that existed between the
children and X----. Their joy was spontaneous and frank at the sight of
him. The moment he appeared they would throw themselves upon him,
shouting with delight; they climbed on him and clung to his neck. And
he? Never once did I see such a picture in any school in Petrograd or
Moscow. He threw himself on the floor, the children about him, and
played and frolicked with them as if they were his own. He was one of
them; they knew it, and they felt at home with him.
Similar beautiful relationships I found in every school and children’s
home we visited. The children were radiant when X---- appeared. They
were the first happy children I had seen in Russia. It strengthened my
conviction of the significance of personality and the importance of
mutual confidence and love between teacher and pupil. We visited a
number of schools that day. Nowhere did I find any discrimination;
everywhere the children had spacious dormitories, spotlessly clean rooms
and beds, good food and clothes. The atmosphere of the schools was warm
and intimate.
We found in Archangel many historic documents, including the
correspondence between Tchaikovsky, of the Provisional Government, and
General Miller, the representative of the Allies. It was pathetic to
read the pleading, almost cringing words of the old pioneer of the
revolutionary movement in Russia, the founder of the Tchaikovsky
circles, the man I had known for years, by whom I had been inspired. The
letters exposed the weakness of the Tchaikovsky régime and the arbitrary
rule of the Allied troops. Particularly significant was the farewell
message of a sailor about to be executed by the Whites. He described his
arrest and cross-examination and the fiendish third degree applied by an
English army officer at the point of a gun. Among the material collected
by us were also copies of various revolutionary and Anarchist
publications issued _sub rosa_. From the Department of Education we
received many interesting posters and drawings, as well as pamphlets and
books, and a collection of specimens of the children’s work. Among them
was a velvet table cover painted by the nuns and portraying Archangel
children in gay colours, presented as their greeting to the children of
America.
The schools and the splendid man at their head were not the only
noteworthy features of Archangel. The other Soviet institutions also
proved efficient. There was no sabotage, the various bureaus worked in
good order, and the general spirit was sincere and progressive.
The food distribution was especially well organized. Unlike most other
places, there was no loss of time or waste of energy connected with
procuring one’s rations. Yet Archangel was not particularly well
supplied with provisions. One could not help thinking of the great
contrast in this regard between that city and Moscow. Archangel probably
learned a lesson in organization from contact with Americans--the last
thing the Allies intended.
The Archangel visit was so interesting and profitable that the
Expedition delayed its departure, and we remained much longer than
originally planned. Before leaving, I called on X----. If anything could
be sent him from “the Centre,” what would he like most, I asked. “Paints
and canvas for our little studio,” he replied. “See Lunacharsky and get
him to send us some.” Splendid, gracious personality!
* * * * *
We left Archangel for Murmansk, but we had not gone far when we were
overtaken by a heavy snowstorm. We were informed that we could not reach
Murmansk in less than a fortnight, a journey which under normal
conditions required three days. There was also danger of not being able
to return to Petrograd on time, the snow often blocking the roads for
weeks. We therefore decided to turn back to Petrograd. When we came
within seventy-five versts [about fifty miles] of that city we ran into
a blizzard. It would take days before the track would be cleared
sufficiently to enable us to proceed. Not cheerful news, but fortunately
we were supplied with fuel and enough provisions for some time.
It was the end of December, and we celebrated Christmas Eve in our car.
The night was glorious, the sky brilliant with stars, the earth clad in
white. A small pine tree, artfully decorated by the Secretary and
enthroned in our diner, graced the occasion. The glow of the little wax
candles lent a touch of romance to the scene. Gifts for our fellow
travellers came all the way from America; they had been given us by
friends in December, 1919, when we were on Ellis Island awaiting
deportation. A year had passed since then, an excruciating year.
Arriving in Petrograd we found the city agitated by the heated
discussion of the rôle of the trade unions. Conditions in the latter had
resulted in so much discontent among the rank and file that the
Communist Party was at last forced to take up the issue. Already in
October the trade union question had been brought up at the sessions of
the Communist Party. The discussions continued all through November and
December, reaching their climax at the Eighth All-Russian Congress of
the Soviets. All the leading Communists participated in the great verbal
contest which was to decide the fate of the labour organizations. The
theses discussed disclosed four different views. First, that of the
Lenin-Zinoviev faction, which held that the main “function of the trade
unions under the proletarian dictatorship is to serve as schools of
Communism.” Second, the group represented by the old Communist Ryasanov,
which insisted that the trade unions must function as the forum of the
workers and their economic protector. Trotsky led the third faction. He
believed that the trade unions would in the course of time become the
managers and controllers of the industries, but for the present the
unions must be subject to strict military discipline and be made
entirely subservient to the needs of the State. The fourth and most
important tendency was that of the Labour Opposition, headed by Madame
Kollontay and Schliapnikov, who expressed the sentiment of the workers
themselves and had their support. This opposition argued that the
governmental attitude toward the trade unions had destroyed the
interest of the toilers in the economic reconstruction of the country
and paralysed their productive capacity. They emphasized that the
October Revolution had been fought to put the proletariat in control of
the industrial life of the country. They demanded the liberation of the
masses from the yoke of the bureaucratic State and its corrupt
officialdom and opportunity for the exercise of the creative energies of
the workers. The Labour Opposition voiced the discontent and aspirations
of the rank and file.
It was a battle royal, with Trotsky and Zinoviev chasing each other over
the country in separate special trains, to disprove each other’s
contentions. In Petrograd, for instance, Zinoviev’s influence was so
powerful that it required a big struggle before Trotsky received
permission to address the Communist Local on his views in the
controversy. The latter engendered intense feeling and for a time
threatened to disrupt the Party.
At the Congress, Lenin denounced the Labour Opposition as
“anarcho-syndicalist, middle-class ideology” and advocated its entire
suppression. Schliapnikov, one of the most influential leaders of the
Opposition, was referred to by Lenin as a “peeved Commissar” and was
subsequently silenced by being made a member of the Central Committee of
the Communist Party. Madame Kollontay was told to hold her tongue or get
out of the Party; her pamphlet setting forth the views of the Opposition
was suppressed. Some of the lesser lights of the Labour Opposition were
given a vacation in the Tcheka, and even Ryasanov, an old and tried
Communist, was suppressed for six months from all union activities.
Soon after our arrival in Petrograd we were informed by the Secretary of
the Museum that a new institution known as the _Ispart_ had been formed
in Moscow to collect material about the history of the Communist Party.
This organization also proposed to supervise all future expeditions of
the Museum of the Revolution and to place them under the direction of a
political Commissar. It became necessary to go to Moscow to ascertain
the facts in the case. We had seen too many evils resulting from the
dictatorship of the political Commissar, the ever-present espionage and
curtailment of independent effort. We could not consent to the change
which was about to be made in the character of our expedition.
CHAPTER V
DEATH AND FUNERAL OF PETER KROPOTKIN
When I reached Moscow in January, 1921, I learned that Peter Kropotkin
had been stricken with pneumonia. I immediately offered to nurse him,
but as one nurse was already in attendance and the Kropotkin cottage was
too small to accommodate extra visitors, it was agreed that Sasha
Kropotkin, who was then in Moscow, should go to Dmitrov to find out
whether I was needed. I had previously arranged to leave for Petrograd
the next day. Till the moment of departure I waited for a call from the
village; none coming, I concluded that Kropotkin was improving. Two days
later, in Petrograd, I was informed by Ravitch that Kropotkin had grown
worse and that I was asked to come to Moscow at once. I left
immediately, but unfortunately my train was ten hours overdue, so that I
reached Moscow too late to connect with Dmitrov. There were at the time
no morning trains to the village and it was not till the eve of
February 7th that I was at last seated in a train bound for the place.
Then the engine went off for fuel and did not return until 1 A.M. of the
next day. When I finally arrived at the Kropotkin cottage, on February
8th, I learned the terrible news that Peter had died about an hour
before. He had repeatedly called for me, but I was not there to render
the last service to my beloved teacher and comrade, one of the world’s
greatest and noblest spirits. It had not been given to me to be near him
in his last hours. I would at least remain until he was carried to his
final resting place.
Two things had particularly impressed me on my two previous visits to
Kropotkin: his lack of bitterness toward the Bolskeviki, and the fact
that he never once alluded to his own hardships and privations. It was
only now, while the family was preparing for the funeral, that I learned
some details of his life under the Bolshevik régime. In the early part
of 1918 Kropotkin had grouped around him some of the ablest specialists
in political economy. His purpose was to make a careful study of the
resources of Russia, to compile these in monographs and to turn them to
practical account in the industrial reconstruction of the country.
Kropotkin was the editor-in-chief of the undertaking. One volume was
prepared, but never published. The Federalist League, as this scientific
group was known, was dissolved by the Government and all the material
confiscated.
On two occasions were the Kropotkin apartments in Moscow requisitioned
and the family forced to seek other quarters. It was after these
experiences that the Kropotkins moved to Dmitrov, where old Peter became
an involuntary exile. Kropotkin, in whose home in the past had gathered
from every land all that was best in thought and ideas, was now forced
to lead the life of a recluse. His only visitors were peasants and
workers of the village and some members of the intelligentsia, whose
wont it was to come to him with their troubles and misfortunes. He had
always kept in touch with the world through numerous publications, but
in Dmitrov he had no access to these sources. His only channels of
information now were the two government papers, _Pravda_ and _Izvestia_.
He was also greatly handicapped in his work on the new Ethics while he
lived in the village. He was mentally starved, which to him was greater
torture than physical malnutrition. It is true that he was given a
better _payck_ than the average person, but even that was insufficient
to sustain his waning strength. Fortunately he occasionally received
from various sources assistance in the form of provisions. His comrades
from abroad, as well as the Anarchists of the Ukraina, often sent him
food packages. Once he received some gifts from Makhno, at that time
heralded by the Bolsheviki as the terror of counter-revolution in
Southern Russia. Especially did the Kropotkins feel the lack of light.
When I visited them in 1920 they were considering themselves fortunate
to be able to have even one room lit. Most of the time Kropotkin worked
by the flicker of a tiny oil lamp that nearly drove him blind. During
the short hours of the day he would transcribe his notes on a
typewriter, slowly and painfully pounding out every letter.
However, it was not his own discomfort which sapped his strength. It was
the thought of the Revolution that had failed, the hardships of Russia,
the persecutions, the endless _raztrels_, which made the last two years
of his life a deep tragedy. On two occasions he attempted to bring the
rulers of Russia to their senses: once in protest against the
suppression of all non-Communist publications; the other time against
the barbaric practice of taking hostages. Ever since the Tcheka had
begun its activities, the Bolshevik Government had sanctioned the taking
of hostages. Old and young, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, even
children, were kept as hostages for the alleged offence of one of their
kin, of which they often knew nothing. Kropotkin regarded such methods
as inexcusable under any circumstances.
In the fall of 1920, members of the Social Revolutionist Party that had
succeeded in getting abroad threatened retaliation if Communist
persecution of their comrades continued. The Bolshevik Government
announced in its official press that for every Communist victim it would
execute ten Social Revolutionists. It was then that the famous
revolutionist Vera Figner and Peter Kropotkin sent their protest to the
powers that be in Russia. They pointed out that such practices were the
worst blot on the Russian Revolution and an evil that had already
brought terrible results in its wake: history would never forgive such
methods.
The other protest was made in reply to the plan of the Government to
“liquidate” all private publishing establishments, including even those
of the coöperatives. The protest was addressed to the Presidium of the
All-Russian Congress of Soviets, then in session. It is interesting to
note that Gorki, himself an official of the Commissariat of Education,
had sent a similar protest. In this statement Kropotkin called attention
to the danger of such a policy to all progress, in fact, to all thought,
and emphasized that such State monopoly would make creative work utterly
impossible. But the protests had no effect. Thereafter Kropotkin felt
that it was useless to appeal to a government gone mad with power.
During the two days I spent in the Kropotkin household I learned more of
his personal life than during all the years that I had known him. Even
his closest friends were not aware that Peter Kropotkin was an artist
and a musician of much talent. Among his effects I discovered a
collection of drawings of great merit. He loved music passionately and
was himself a musician of unusual ability. Much of his leisure he spent
at the piano.
And now he lay on his couch, in the little workroom, as if peacefully
asleep, his face as kindly in death as it had been in life. Thousands of
people made pilgrimages to the Kropotkin cottage to pay homage to this
great son of Russia. When his remains were carried to the station to be
taken to Moscow, the whole population of the village attended the
impressive funeral procession to express their last affectionate
greeting to the man who had lived among them as their friend and
comrade.
The friends and comrades of Kropotkin decided that the Anarchist
organizations should have exclusive charge of the funeral, and a Peter
Kropotkin Funeral Commission was formed in Moscow, consisting of
representatives of the various Anarchist groups. The Committee wired
Lenin, asking him to order the release of all Anarchists imprisoned in
the capital in order to give them the opportunity to participate in the
funeral.
Owing to the nationalization of all public conveyances, printing
establishments, etc., the Anarchist Funeral Commission was compelled to
ask the Moscow Soviet to enable it to carry out successfully the funeral
programme. The Anarchists being deprived of their own press, the
Commission had to apply to the authorities for the publication of the
matter necessary in connection with the funeral arrangements. After
considerable discussion permission was secured to print two leaflets and
to issue a four-page bulletin in commemoration of Peter Kropotkin. The
Commission requested that the paper be issued without censorship and
stated that the reading matter would consist of appreciations of our
dead comrade, exclusive of all polemical questions. This request was
categorically refused. Having no choice, the Commission was forced to
submit and the manuscripts were sent in for censorship. To forestall the
possibility of remaining without any memorial issue because of the
delaying tactics of the Government, the Funeral Commission resolved to
open, on its own responsibility, a certain Anarchist printing office
that had been sealed by the Government. The bulletin and the two
leaflets were printed in that establishment.
In answer to the wire sent to Lenin the Central Committee of the
All-Russian Executive of the Soviets resolved “to propose to the
All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (_Veh-Tcheka_) to release,
according to its judgment, the imprisoned Anarchists for participation
in the funeral of Peter A. Kropotkin.” The delegates sent to the Tcheka
were asked whether the Funeral Commission would guarantee the return of
the prisoners. They replied that the question had not been discussed.
The Tcheka thereupon refused to release the Anarchists. The Funeral
Commission, informed of the new development in the situation,
immediately guaranteed the return of the prisoners after the funeral.
Thereupon the Tcheka replied that “there are no Anarchists in prison
who, in the judgment of the Chairman of the Extraordinary Commission,
could be released for the funeral.”
The remains of the dead lay in state in the Hall of Columns in the
Moscow Labour Temple. On the morning of the funeral the Kropotkin
Funeral Commission decided to inform the assembled people of the breach
of faith on the part of the authorities and demonstratively to withdraw
from the Temple all the wreaths presented by official Communist bodies.
Fearing public exposure, the representatives of the Moscow Soviet
definitely promised that all the Anarchists imprisoned in Moscow would
immediately be released to attend the funeral. But this promise was also
broken, only seven of the Anarchists being released from the “inner
jail” of the Extraordinary Commission. None of the Anarchists imprisoned
in the Butyrki attended the funeral. The official explanation was that
the twenty Anarchists incarcerated in that prison refused to accept the
offer of the authorities. Later I visited the prisoners to ascertain the
facts in the case. They informed me that a representative of the
Extraordinary Commission insisted on _individual_ attendance, making
exceptions in some cases. The Anarchists, aware that the promise of
temporary release was _collective_, demanded that the stipulations be
kept. The Tcheka representative went to the telephone to consult the
higher authorities, so he said. He did not return.
The funeral was a most impressive sight. It was a unique demonstration
never witnessed in any other country. Long lines of members of Anarchist
organizations, labour unions, scientific and literary societies and
student bodies marched for over two hours from the Labour Temple to the
burial place, seven versts [nearly five miles] distant. The procession
was headed by students and children carrying wreaths presented by
various organizations. Anarchist banners of black and scarlet Socialist
emblems floated above the multitude. The mile-long procession entirely
dispensed with the services of the official guardians of the peace.
Perfect order was kept by the multitude itself spontaneously forming in
several rows, while students and workers organized a live chain on both
sides of the marchers. Passing the Tolstoi Museum the cortège paused,
and the banners were lowered in honour of the memory of another great
son of Russia. A group of Tolstoians on the steps of the Museum rendered
Chopin’s Funeral March as an expression of their love and reverence for
Kropotkin.
The brilliant winter sun was sinking behind the horizon when the remains
of Kropotkin were lowered into the grave, after speakers of many
political tendencies had paid the last tribute to their great teacher
and comrade.
CHAPTER VI
KRONSTADT
In February, 1921, the workers of several Petrograd factories went on
strike. The winter was an exceptionally hard one, and the people of the
capital suffered intensely from cold, hunger, and exhaustion. They asked
an increase of their food rations, some fuel and clothing. The
complaints of the strikers, ignored by the authorities, presently
assumed a political character. Here and there was also voiced a demand
for the Constituent Assembly and free trade. The attempted street
demonstration of the strikers was suppressed, the Government having
ordered out the military _kursanti_. Lisa Zorin, who of all the
Communists I had met remained closest to the people, was present at the
breaking up of the demonstration. One woman became so enraged over the
brutality of the military that she attacked Lisa. The latter, true to
her proletarian instincts, saved the woman from arrest and accompanied
her home. There she found the most appalling conditions. In a dark and
damp room there lived a worker’s family with its six children,
half-naked in the bitter cold. Subsequently Lisa said to me: “I felt
sick to think that I was in the Astoria.” Later she moved out.
When the Kronstadt sailors learned what was happening in Petrograd they
expressed their solidarity with the strikers in their economic and
revolutionary demands, but refused to support any call for the
Constituent Assembly. On March 1st, the sailors organized a mass meeting
in Kronstadt, which was attended also by the Chairman of the All-Russian
Central Executive Committee, Kalinin (the presiding officer of the
Republic of Russia), the Commander of the Kronstadt Fortress, Kuzmin,
and the Chairman of the Kronstadt Soviet, Vassiliev. The meeting, held
with the knowledge of the Executive Committee of the Kronstadt Soviet,
passed a resolution approved by the sailors, the garrison, and the
citizens’ meeting of 16,000 persons. Kalinin, Kuzmin, and Vassiliev
spoke against the resolution, which later became the basis of the
conflict between Kronstadt and the Government. It voiced the popular
demand for Soviets elected by the free choice of the people. It is
worth reproducing that document in full, that the reader may be enabled
to judge the true character of the Kronstadt demands. The Resolution
read:
Having heard the Report of the Representatives sent by the General
Meeting of Ship Crews to Petrograd to investigate the situation
there, Resolved:
(1) In view of the fact that the present Soviets do not express the
will of the workers and the peasants, immediately to hold new
elections by secret ballot, the pre-election campaign to have full
freedom of agitation among the workers and peasants;
(2) To establish freedom of speech and press for workers and
peasants, for Anarchists and left Socialist parties;
(3) To secure freedom of assembly for labour unions and peasant
organizations;
(4) To call a non-partisan Conference of the workers, Red Army
soldiers and sailors of Petrograd, Kronstadt, and of Petrograd
Province, no later than March 10, 1921;
(5) To liberate all political prisoners of Socialist parties, as
well as all workers, peasants, soldiers, and sailors imprisoned in
connection with the labour and peasant movements;
(6) To elect a Commission to review the cases of those held in
prisons and concentration camps;
(7) To abolish all _politotdeli_[A] because no party should be
given special privileges in the propagation of its ideas or receive
the financial support of the Government for such purposes. Instead
there should be established educational and cultural commissions,
locally elected and financed by the Government.
(8) To abolish immediately all _zagryaditelniye otryadi_[B];
(9) To equalize the rations of all who work, with the exception of
those employed in trades detrimental to health;
(10) To abolish the Communist fighting detachments in all branches
of the Army, as well as the Communist guards kept on duty in mills
and factories. Should such guards or military detachments be found
necessary, they are to be appointed in the Army from the ranks, and
in the factories according to the judgment of the workers;
(11) To give the peasants full freedom of action in regard to their
land, and also the right to keep cattle, on condition that the
peasants manage with their own means; that is, without employing
hired labour;
(12) To request all branches of the Army, as well as our comrades
the military _kursanti_, to concur in our resolutions;
(13) To demand that the press give the fullest publicity to our
resolutions;
(14) To appoint a Travelling Commission of Control;
(15) To permit free _kustarnoye_[C] production by one’s own
efforts.
On March 4th the Petrograd Soviet was to meet and it was generally felt
that the fate of Kronstadt would be decided then. Trotsky was to address
the gathering, and as I had not yet had an opportunity to hear him in
Russia, I was anxious to attend. My attitude in the matter of Kronstadt
was still undecided. I could not believe that the Bolsheviki would
deliberately fabricate the story about General Kozlovsky as the leader
of the sailors. The Soviet meeting, I expected, would clarify the
matter.
Tauride Palace was crowded and a special body of _kursanti_ surrounded
the platform. The atmosphere was very tense. All waited for Trotsky. But
when at 10 o’clock he had not arrived, Zinoviev opened the meeting.
Before he had spoken fifteen minutes I was convinced that he himself did
not believe in the story of Kozlovsky. “Of course Kozlovsky is old and
can do nothing,” he said, “but the White officers are back of him and
are misleading the sailors.” Yet for days the Soviet papers had heralded
General Kozlovsky as the moving spirit in the “uprising.” Kalinin, whom
the sailors had permitted to leave Kronstadt unmolested, raved like a
fishmonger. He denounced the sailors as counter-revolutionists and
called for their immediate subjugation. Several other Communists
followed suit. When the meeting was opened for discussion, a workingman
from the Petrograd Arsenal demanded to be heard. He spoke with deep
emotion and, ignoring the constant interruptions, he fearlessly
declared that the workers had been driven to strike because of the
Government’s indifference to their complaints; the Kronstadt sailors,
far from being counter-revolutionists, were devoted to the Revolution.
Facing Zinoviev he reminded him that the Bolshevik authorities were now
acting toward the workers and sailors just as the Kerensky Government
had acted toward the Bolsheviki. “Then _you_ were denounced as
counter-revolutionists and German agents,” he said; “we, the workers and
sailors, protected you and helped you to power. Now you denounce us and
are ready to attack us with arms. Remember, you are playing with fire.”
Then a sailor spoke. He referred to the glorious revolutionary past of
Kronstadt, appealed to the Communists not to engage in fratricide, and
read the Kronstadt resolution to prove the peaceful attitude of the
sailors. But the voice of these sons of the people fell on deaf ears.
The Petro-Soviet, its passions roused by Bolshevik demagoguery, passed
the Zinoviev resolution ordering Kronstadt to surrender on pain of
extermination.
The Kronstadt sailors were ever the first to serve the Revolution. They
had played an important part in the revolution of 1905; they were in
the front ranks in 1917. Under Kerensky’s régime they proclaimed the
Commune of Kronstadt and opposed the Constituent Assembly. They were the
advance guard in the October Revolution. In the great struggle against
Yudenitch the sailors offered the strongest defense of Petrograd, and
Trotsky praised them as the “pride and glory of the Revolution.” Now,
however, they had dared to raise their voice in protest against the new
rulers of Russia. That was high treason from the Bolshevik viewpoint.
The Kronstadt sailors were doomed.
Petrograd was aroused over the decision of the Soviet; some of the
Communists even, especially those of the French Section, were filled
with indignation. But none of them had the courage to protest, even in
the Party circles, against the proposed slaughter. As soon as the
Petro-Soviet resolution became known, a group of well-known literary men
of Petrograd gathered to confer as to whether something could not be
done to prevent the planned crime. Someone suggested that Gorki be
approached to head a committee of protest to the Soviet authorities. It
was hoped that he would emulate the example of his illustrious
countryman Tolstoi, who in his famous letter to the Tsar had raised his
voice against the terrible slaughter of workers. Now also such a voice
was needed, and Gorki was considered the right man to call on the
present Tsars to bethink themselves. But most of those present at the
gathering scouted the idea. Gorki was of the Bolsheviki, they said; he
would not do anything. On several previous occasions he had been
appealed to, but refused to intercede. The conference brought no
results. Still, there were some persons in Petrograd who could not
remain silent. They sent the following letter to the Soviet of Defense:
0
TO THE PETROGRAD SOVIET OF LABOUR AND DEFENSE,
CHAIRMAN ZINOVIEV:
To remain silent now is impossible, even criminal. Recent events
impel us Anarchists to speak out and to declare our attitude in the
present situation.
The spirit of ferment and dissatisfaction manifest among the
workers and sailors is the result of causes that demand our serious
attention. Cold and hunger have produced dissatisfaction, and the
absence of any opportunity for discussion and criticism is forcing
the workers and sailors to air their grievances in the open.
White-guardist bands wish and may try to exploit this
dissatisfaction in their own class interests. Hiding behind the
workers and sailors they throw out slogans of the Constituent
Assembly, of free trade, and similar demands.
We Anarchists have long since exposed the fiction of these
slogans, and we declare to the whole world that we will fight with
arms against any counter-revolutionary attempt, in coöperation with
all friends of the Social Revolution and hand in hand with the
Bolsheviki.
Concerning the conflict between the Soviet Government and the
workers and sailors, we hold that it must be settled not by force
of arms but by means of comradely, fraternal revolutionary
agreement. Resort to bloodshed on the part of the Soviet Government
will not--in the given situation--intimidate or quiet the workers.
On the contrary, it will serve only to aggravate matters and will
strengthen the hands of the Entente and of internal
counter-revolution.
More important still, the use of force by the Workers’ and
Peasants’ Government against workers and sailors will have a
reactionary effect upon the international revolutionary movement
and will everywhere result in incalculable harm to the Social
Revolution.
Comrades Bolsheviki, bethink yourselves before it is too late. Do
not play with fire: you are about to make a most serious and
decisive step.
We hereby submit to you the following proposition: Let a Commission
be selected to consist of five persons, inclusive of two
Anarchists. The Commission is to go to Kronstadt to settle the
dispute by peaceful means. In the given situation this is the most
radical method. It will be of international revolutionary
significance.
_Petrograd_, ALEXANDER BERKMAN.
_March 5, 1921._ EMMA GOLDMAN.
PERKUS.
PETROVSKY.
But this protest was ignored.
On March 7th Trotsky began the bombardment of Kronstadt, and on the
17th the fortress and city were taken, after numerous assaults involving
terrific human sacrifice. Thus Kronstadt was “liquidated” and the
“counter-revolutionary plot” quenched in blood. The “conquest” of the
city was characterized by ruthless savagery, although not a single one
of the Communists arrested by the Kronstadt sailors had been injured or
killed by them. Even before the storming of the fortress the Bolsheviki
summarily executed numerous soldiers of the Red Army whose revolutionary
spirit and solidarity caused them to refuse to participate in the
bloodbath.
Several days after the “glorious victory” over Kronstadt Lenin said at
the Tenth Congress of the Communist Party of Russia: “The sailors did
not want the counter-revolutionists, but they did not want us, either.”
And--irony of Bolshevism!--at that very Congress Lenin advocated free
trade--a more reactionary step than any charged to the Kronstadt
sailors.
Between the 1st and the 17th of March several regiments of the Petrograd
garrison and all the sailors of the port were disarmed and ordered to
the Ukraina and the Caucasus. The Bolsheviki feared to trust them in the
Kronstadt situation: at the first psychological moment they might make
common cause with Kronstadt. In fact, many Red soldiers of the Krasnaya
Gorka and the surrounding garrisons were also in sympathy with Kronstadt
and were forced at the point of guns to attack the sailors.
On March 17th the Communist Government completed its “victory” over the
Kronstadt proletariat and on the 18th of March it commemorated the
martyrs of the Paris Commune. It was apparent to all who were mute
witnesses to the outrage committed by the Bolsheviki that the crime
against Kronstadt was far more enormous than the slaughter of the
Communards in 1871, for it was done in the name of the Social
Revolution, in the name of the Socialist Republic. History will not be
deceived. In the annals of the Russian Revolution the names of Trotsky,
Zinoviev, and Dibenko will be added to those of Thiers and Gallifet.
Seventeen dreadful days, more dreadful than anything I had known in
Russia. Agonizing days, because of my utter helplessness in the face of
the terrible things enacted before my eyes. It was just at that time
that I happened to visit a friend who had been a patient in a hospital
for months. I found him much distressed. Many of those wounded in the
attack on Kronstadt had been brought to the same hospital, mostly
_kursanti_. I had opportunity to speak to one of them. His physical
suffering, he said, was nothing as compared with his mental agony. Too
late he had realized that he had been duped by the cry of
“counter-revolution.” There were no Tsarist generals in Kronstadt, no
White Guardists--he found only his own comrades, sailors and soldiers
who had heroically fought for the Revolution.
The rations of the ordinary patients in the hospitals were far from
satisfactory, but the wounded _kursanti_ received the best of
everything, and a select committee of Communist members was assigned to
look after their comfort. Some of the _kursanti_, among them the man I
had spoken to, refused to accept the special privileges. “They want to
pay us for murder,” they said. Fearing that the whole institution would
be influenced by these awakened victims, the management ordered them
removed to a separate ward, the “Communist ward,” as the patients called
it.
Kronstadt broke the last thread that held me to the Bolsheviki. The
wanton slaughter they had instigated spoke more eloquently against them
than aught else. Whatever their pretences in the past, the Bolsheviki
now proved themselves the most pernicious enemies of the Revolution. I
could have nothing further to do with them.
CHAPTER VII
PERSECUTION OF ANARCHISTS
In a country State-owned and controlled as completely as Russia it is
almost impossible to live without the “grace” of the Government.
However, I was determined to make the attempt. I would accept nothing,
not even bread rations, from the hands stained with the blood of the
brave Kronstadt sailors. Fortunately, I had some clothing left me by an
American friend; it could be exchanged for provisions. I had also
received some money from my own people in the United States. That would
enable me to live for some time.
In Moscow I procured a small room formerly occupied by the daughter of
Peter Kropotkin. From that day on I lived like thousands of other
Russians, carrying water, chopping wood, washing and cooking, all in my
little room. But I felt freer and better for it.
The new economic policy turned Moscow into a vast market place. Trade
became the new religion. Shops and stores sprang up overnight,
mysteriously stacked with delicacies Russia had not seen for years.
Large quantities of butter, cheese, and meat were displayed for sale;
pastry, rare fruit, and sweets of every variety were to be purchased. In
the building of the First House of the Soviet one of the biggest pastry
shops had been opened. Men, women, and children with pinched faces and
hungry eyes stood about gazing into the windows and discussing the great
miracle: what was but yesterday considered a heinous offence was now
flaunted before them in an open and legal manner. I overheard a Red
soldier say: “Is this what we made the Revolution for? For this our
comrades had to die?” The slogan, “Rob the robbers,” was now turned into
“Respect the robbers,” and again was proclaimed the sanctity of private
property.
Russia was thus gradually resurrecting the social conditions that the
great Revolution had come to destroy. But the return to capitalism in no
way changed the Bolshevik attitude toward the Left elements. Bourgeois
ideas and practices were to be encouraged to develop the industrial life
of Russia, but revolutionary tendencies were to be suppressed as
before.
In connection with Kronstadt a general raid on Anarchists took place in
Petrograd and Moscow. The prisons were filled with these victims. Almost
every known Anarchist had been arrested, and the Anarchist book stores
and printing offices of “Golos Truda” in both cities were sealed by the
Tcheka. The Ukrainian Anarchists who had been arrested on the eve of the
Kharkov Conference (though guaranteed immunity by the Bolsheviki under
the Makhno agreement) were brought to Moscow and placed in the Butyrki;
that Romanov dungeon was again serving its old purpose--even holding
some of the revolutionists incarcerated there before. Presently it
became known that the politicals in the Butyrki had been brutally
assaulted by the Tcheka and secretly deported to unknown parts. Moscow
was much agitated by this resurrection of the worst prison methods of
Tsarism. Interpellation on the subject was made in the Moscow Soviet,
the indignation of the deputies being so great that the Tcheka
representative was shouted off the platform. Several Moscow Anarchist
groups sent a vigorous protest to the authorities, which document I
quote in part:
The undersigned Anarcho-syndicalist organizations, after having
carefully considered the situation that has developed lately in
connection with the persecution of Anarchists in Moscow, Petrograd,
Kharkov, and other cities of Russia and the Ukraina, including the
forcible suppression of Anarchist organizations, clubs,
publications, etc., hereby express their decisive and energetic
protest against this despotic crushing of not only every
agitational and propagandistic activity, but even of all purely
cultural work by Anarchist organizations.
The systematic man-hunt of Anarchists in general, and of
Anarcho-syndicalists in particular, with the result that every
prison and jail in Soviet Russia is filled with our comrades, fully
coincided in time and spirit with Lenin’s speech at the Tenth
Congress of the Russian Communist Party. On that occasion Lenin
announced that the most merciless war must be declared against what
he termed “petty bourgeois Anarchist elements” which, according to
him, are developing even within the Communist Party itself owing to
the “anarcho-syndicalist tendencies of the Labour Opposition.” On
that very day that Lenin made the above statements numbers of
Anarchists were arrested all over the country, without the least
cause or explanation. No charges have been preferred against any
one of the imprisoned comrades, though some of them have already
been condemned to long terms without hearing or trial, and in their
absence. The conditions of their imprisonment are exceptionally
vile and brutal. Thus one of the arrested, Comrade Maximov, after
numerous vain protests against the incredibly unhygienic conditions
in which he was forced to exist, was driven to the only means of
protest left him--a hunger strike. Another comrade, Yarchuk,
released after an imprisonment of six days, was soon rearrested
without any charges being preferred against him on either occasion.
According to reliable information received by us, some of the
arrested Anarchists are being sent to the prisons of Samara, far
away from home and friends, and thus deprived of what little
comradely assistance they might have been able to receive nearer
home. A number of other comrades have been forced by the terrible
conditions of their imprisonment to declare a hunger strike. One of
them, after hungering twelve days, became dangerously ill.
Even physical violence is practised upon our comrades in prison.
The statement of the Anarchists in the Butyrki prison in Moscow,
signed by thirty-eight comrades, and sent to the Executive
Committee of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission on March
16th, contains, among other things, the following statement: “On
March 15th Comrade T. Kashirin was brutally attacked and beaten in
the prison of the Special Department of the Extraordinary
Commission by your agent Mago and assistants, in the presence of
the prison warden Dookiss.”
Besides the wholesale arrests of and the physical violence toward
our comrades, the Government is waging systematic war against our
educational work. It has closed a number of our clubs, as well as
the Moscow office of the publishing establishment of the
Anarcho-syndicalist organization _Golos Truda_. A similar man-hunt
took place in Petrograd on March 15th. Numbers of Anarchists were
arrested, without cause, the printing house of _Golos Truda_ was
closed, and its workers imprisoned. No charges have been preferred
against the arrested comrades, all of whom are still in prison.
These unbearably autocratic tactics of the Government towards the
Anarchists are unquestionably the result of the general policy of
the Bolshevik State in the exclusive control of the Communist Party
in regard to Anarchism, Syndicalism, and their adherents.
This state of affairs is forcing us to raise our voices in loud
protest against the panicky and brutal suppression of the Anarchist
movement by the Bolshevik Government. Here in Russia our voice is
weak. It is stifled. The policy of the ruling Communist Party is
designed to destroy absolutely every possibility or effort of
Anarchist activity or propaganda. The Anarchists of Russia are thus
forced into the condition of a complete moral hunger strike, for
the Government is depriving us of the possibility to carry out even
those plans and projects which it itself only recently promised to
aid.
Realizing more clearly than ever before the truth of our Anarchist
ideal and the imperative need of its application to life we are
convinced that the revolutionary proletariat of the world is with
us.
* * * * *
After the February Revolution Russian Anarchists returned from every
land to Russia to devote themselves to revolutionary activity. The
Bolsheviki had adopted the Anarchist slogan, “The factories to the
workers, the land to the peasants,” and thereby won the sympathies of
the Anarchists. The latter saw in the Bolsheviki the spokesmen of social
and economic emancipation, and joined forces with them.
Through the October period the Anarchists worked hand in hand with the
Communists and fought with them side by side in the defense of the
Revolution. Then came the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, which many Anarchists
considered a betrayal of the Revolution. It was the first warning for
them that all was not well with the Bolsheviki. But Russia was still
exposed to foreign intervention, and the Anarchists felt that they must
continue together to fight the common enemy.
In April, 1918, came another blow. By order of Trotsky the Anarchist
headquarters in Moscow were attacked with artillery, some Anarchists
wounded, a large number arrested, and all Anarchist activities
“liquidated.” This entirely unexpected outrage served further to
alienate the Anarchists from the ruling Party. Still the majority of
them remained with the Bolsheviki: they felt that, in spite of internal
persecution, to turn against the existing régime was to work into the
hands of the counter-revolutionary forces. The Anarchists participated
in every social, educational, and economic effort; they worked even in
the military departments to aid Russia. In the Red Guards, in the
volunteer regiments, and later in the Red Army; as organizers and
managers of factories and shops; as chiefs of the fuel bureaus; as
teachers--everywhere the Anarchists held difficult and responsible
positions. Out of their ranks came some of the ablest men who worked in
the foreign office with Tchicherin and Kharakan, in the various press
bureaus, as Bolshevik diplomatic representatives in Turkestan, Bokhara,
and the Far Eastern Republic. Throughout Russia the Anarchists worked
with and for the Bolsheviki in the belief that they were advancing the
cause of the Revolution. But the devotion and zeal of the Anarchists in
no way deterred the Communists from relentlessly persecuting the
Anarchist movement.
The peculiar general situation and the confusion of ideas created in all
revolutionary circles by the Bolshevik experiment divided the Anarchist
forces in Russia into several factions, thereby weakening their effect
upon the course of the Revolution. There were a number of groups, each
striving separately and striving vainly against the formidable machine
which they themselves had helped to create. In the dense political fog
many lost their sense of direction: they could not distinguish between
the Bolsheviki and the Revolution. In desperation some Anarchists were
driven to underground activities, even as they had been during the
régime of the Tsars. But such work was more difficult and perilous under
the new rulers and it also opened the door to the sinister machinations
of provocators. The more mature Anarchist organizations, such as the
_Nabat_, in the Ukraina, _Golos Truda_ in Petrograd and Moscow, and the
_Voylni Trud_ group--the last two of Anarcho-syndicalist
tendency--continued their work openly, as best they could.
Unfortunately, as was unavoidable under the circumstances, some evil
spirits had found entry into the Anarchist ranks--débris washed ashore
by the Revolutionary tide. They were types to whom the Revolution meant
only destruction, occasionally even for personal advantage. They engaged
in shady pursuits and, when arrested and their lives threatened, they
often turned traitors and joined the Tcheka. Particularly in Kharkov and
Odessa thrived this poisonous weed. The Anarchists at large were the
first to take a stand against this element. The Bolsheviki, always
anxious to secure the services of the Anarchist derelicts,
systematically perverted the facts. They maligned, persecuted, and
hounded the Anarchist movement as such. It was this Communist treachery
and despotism which resulted in a bomb’s being thrown during the session
of the Moscow Section of the Communist Party in September, 1919. It was
an act of protest, members of the various political tendencies
coöperating in it. The Anarchist organizations _Golos Truda_ and _Voylni
Trud_ in Moscow publicly expressed their condemnation of such methods,
but the Government replied with reprisals against all Anarchists. Yet,
in spite of their bitter experiences and martyrdom under the Bolshevik
régime, most of the Anarchists clung tenaciously to the hand that smote
them. It needed the outrage upon Kronstadt to rouse them from the
hypnotic spell of the Bolshevik superstition.
Power is corrupting, and Anarchists are no exception. It must in truth
be admitted that a certain Anarchist element became demoralized by it;
by far the largest majority retained their integrity. Neither Bolshevik
persecution nor oft-attempted bribery of good position with all its
special privileges succeeded in alienating the great bulk of Anarchists
from their ideals. As a result they were constantly harassed and
incarcerated. Their existence in the prisons was a continuous torture:
in most of them still obtained the old régime and only the collective
struggle of the politicals occasionally succeeded in compelling reforms
and improvements. Thus it required repeated “obstructions” and hunger
strikes in the Butyrki before the authorities were forced to make
concessions. The politicals succeeded in establishing a sort of
university, organized lectures, and received visits and food parcels.
But the Tcheka frowned upon such “liberties.” Suddenly, without warning,
an end was put to decent treatment; the Butyrki was raided and the
prisoners, numbering more than 400, and belonging to various
revolutionary wings, were forcibly taken from their cells and
transferred to other penal institutions. A message received at the time
from one of the victims, dated April 27th, reads:
Concentration Camp, Ryazan.
On the night of April 25th we were attacked by Red soldiers and
armed Tchekists and ordered to dress and get ready to leave the
Butyrki. Some of the politicals, fearing that they were to be taken
to execution, refused to go and were terribly beaten. The women
especially were maltreated, some of them being dragged down the
stairs by their hair. Many have suffered serious injury. I myself
was so badly beaten that my whole body feels like one big sore. We
were taken out by force in our night-clothes and thrown into
wagons. The comrades in our group knew nothing of the whereabouts
of the rest of the politicals, including Mensheviks, Social
Revolutionists, Anarchists, and Anarcho-syndicalists.
Ten of us, among them Fanya Baron, have been brought here.
Conditions in this prison are unbearable. No exercise, no fresh
air; food is scarce and filthy; everywhere awful dirt, bedbugs, and
lice. We mean to declare a hunger strike for better treatment. We
have just been told to get ready with our things. They are going
to send us away again. We do not know where to.
[Signed] T.
Upon the circumstances of the Butyrki raid becoming known the students
of the Moscow University held a protest meeting and passed resolutions
condemnatory of the outrage. Thereupon the student leaders were arrested
and the University closed. The non-resident students were ordered to
leave Moscow within three days on the pretext of lack of rations. The
students volunteered to give up their _payok_, but the Government
insisted on their quitting the capital. Later, when the University was
re-opened, Preobrazhensky, the Dean, admonished the students to refrain
from any political expressions on pain of being expelled from the
University. Some of the arrested students were exiled, among them
several girl students, for the sole crime of being members of a circle
whose aim was to study the works of Kropotkin and other Anarchist
authors. The methods of the Tsar were resurrected by his heirs to the
throne in Bolshevik Russia.
* * * * *
After the death of Peter Kropotkin his friends and comrades decided to
found a Kropotkin Museum in commemoration of the great Anarchist
teacher and in furtherance of his ideas and ideals. I removed to Moscow
to aid in the organization of the proposed memorial, but before long the
Museum Committee concluded that for the time being the project could not
be realized. Everything being under State monopoly, nothing could be
done without application to the authorities. To accept Government aid
would have been a deliberate betrayal of the spirit of Kropotkin who
throughout his life consistently refused State assistance. Once when
Kropotkin was ill and in need, the Bolshevik Government offered him a
large sum for the right to publish his works. Kropotkin refused. He was
compelled to accept rations and medical assistance when sick, but he
would neither consent to his works being published by the State nor
accept any other aid from it. The Kropotkin Museum Committee took the
same attitude. It accepted from the Moscow Soviet the house Kropotkin
had been born in, and which was to be turned into a Kropotkin Museum;
but it would ask the Government for nothing more. The house at the time
was occupied by a military organization; it would require months to get
it vacated and then no means would be at hand to have it renovated.
Some of the Committee members felt that a Kropotkin Museum was out of
place in Bolshevik Russia as long as despotism was rampant and the
prisons filled with political dissenters.
While I was in Petrograd on a short visit, the Moscow apartment in which
I had a room was raided by the Tcheka. I learned that the customary trap
had been set and everyone arrested who called at the place during the
_zassada_. I visited Ravitch to protest against such proceedings,
telling her that if the object was to take me into custody I was
prepared for it. Ravitch had heard nothing of the matter, but promised
to get in touch with Moscow. A few days later I was informed that the
Tchekists had been withdrawn from the apartment and that the arrested
friends were about to be released. When I returned to my room some time
later most of them had been freed. At the same time a number of
Anarchists were arrested in various parts of the capital and no news of
their fate or of the cause of their arrest could be learned. Several
weeks later, on August 30th, the Moscow _Izvestia_ published the
official report of the Veh-Tcheka concerning “Anarchist banditism,”
announcing that ten Anarchists had been shot as “bandits” without
hearing or trial.
It had become the established policy of the Bolshevik Government to mask
its barbaric procedure against Anarchists with the uniform charge of
banditism. This accusation was made practically against all arrested
Anarchists and frequently even against sympathizers with the movement. A
very convenient method of getting rid of an undesirable person: by it
any one could be secretly executed and buried.
Among the ten victims were two of the best known Russian Anarchists,
whose idealism and life-long devotion to the cause of humanity had stood
the test of Tsarist dungeons and exile, and persecution and suffering in
other countries. They were Fanya Baron, who several months before had
escaped from the Ryazan prison, and Lev Tcherny who had spent many years
of his life in _katorga_ and exile, under the old régime. The Bolsheviki
did not have the courage to say that they had shot Lev Tcherny; in the
list of the executed he appeared as “Turchaninoff,” which--though his
real name--was unfamiliar to some even of his closest friends. Tcherny
was known throughout Russia as a gifted poet and writer. In 1907 he had
published an original work on “Associational Anarchism,” and since his
return from Siberia in 1917 he had enjoyed wide popularity among the
workers of Moscow as a lecturer and founder of the “Federation of Brain
Workers.” He was a man of great gifts, tender and sympathetic in all his
relationships. No person could be further from banditism.
The mother of Tcherny had repeatedly called at the _Ossoby Otdel_
(Special Department of the Tcheka) to learn the fate of her son. Every
time she was told to come next day; she would then be permitted to see
him. As established later, Tcherny had already been shot when these
promises were being made. After his death the authorities refused to
turn his body over to his relatives or friends for burial. There were
persistent rumours that the Tcheka had not intended to execute Tcherny,
but that he died under torture.
Fanya Baron was of the type of Russian woman completely consecrated to
the cause of humanity. While in America she gave all her spare time and
a goodly part of her meagre earnings in a factory to further Anarchist
propaganda. Years afterward, when I met her in Kharkov, her zeal and
devotion had become intensified by the persecution she and her comrades
had endured since their return to Russia. She possessed unbounded
courage and a generous spirit. She could perform the most difficult
task and deprive herself of the last piece of bread with grace and utter
selflessness. Under harrowing conditions of travel, Fanya went up and
down the Ukraina to spread the _Nabat_, organize the workers and
peasants, or bring help and succour to her imprisoned comrades. She was
one of the victims of the Butyrki raid, when she had been dragged by her
hair and badly beaten. After her escape from the Ryazan prison she
tramped on foot to Moscow, where she arrived in tatters and penniless.
It was her desperate condition which drove her to seek shelter with her
husband’s brother, at whose house she was discovered by the Tcheka. This
big-hearted woman, who had served the Social Revolution all her life,
was done to death by the people who pretended to be the advance guard of
revolution. Not content with the crime of killing Fanya Baron, the
Soviet Government put the stigma of banditism on the memory of their
dead victim.
CHAPTER VIII
TRAVELLING SALESMEN OF THE REVOLUTION
Great preparations were being made by the Communists for the Third
Congress of the Third International and the First Congress of the Red
Trade Union International. A preliminary committee had been organized in
the summer of 1920, while delegates from various countries were in
Moscow. How much the Bolsheviki depended upon the First Congress of the
Red Trade Union International was apparent from a remark of an old
Communist. “We haven’t the workers in the Third International,” he said;
“unless we succeed in welding together the proletariat of the world into
the R. T. U. I., the Third International cannot last very long.”
The Hôtel de Luxe, renovated the previous year, became the foreign guest
house of the Third International and was put in festive attire. The
delegates began to arrive in Moscow.
During my stay in Russia I came across three classes of visitors who
came to “study the Revolution.” The first category consisted of earnest
idealists to whom the Bolsheviki were the symbol of the Revolution.
Among them were many emigrants from America who had given up everything
they possessed to return to the promised land. Most of these became
bitterly disappointed after the first few months and sought to get out
of Russia. Others, who did not come as Communists, joined the Communist
Party for selfish reasons and did in Rome as the Romans do. There were
also the Anarchist deportees who came not of their own choice. Most of
them strained every effort to leave Russia after they realized the
stupendous deception that had been imposed on the world.
In the second class were journalists, newspapermen, and some
adventurers. They spent from two weeks to two months in Russia, usually
in Petrograd or Moscow, as the guests of the Government and in charge of
Bolshevik guides. Hardly any of them knew the language and they never
got further than the surface of things. Yet many of them have presumed
to write and lecture authoritatively about the Russian situation. I
remember my astonishment when I read in a certain London daily that the
teachings of Jesus were “being realized in Russia.” A preposterous
falsehood of which none but a charlatan could be guilty. Other writers
were not much nearer the truth. If they were at all critical of the
Bolsheviki they were so at the expense of the whole Russian people, whom
they charged with being “crude, primitive savages, too illiterate to
grasp the meaning of the Revolution.” According to these writers it was
the Russian people who imposed upon the Bolsheviki their despotic and
cruel methods. It did not occur to those so-called investigators that
the Revolution was made by those primitive and illiterate people, and
not by the present rulers in the Kremlin. Surely they must have
possessed some quality which enabled them to rise to revolutionary
heights--a quality which, if properly directed, would have prevented the
wreck and ruin of Russia. But that quality has persistently been
overlooked by Bolshevik apologists who sacrifice all truth in their
determination to find extenuating circumstances for the mess made by the
Bolsheviki. A few wrote with understanding of the complex problems and
with sympathy for the Russian people. But their voice was ineffectual in
the popular craze that Bolshevism had become.
The third category--the majority of the visitors, delegates, and
members of various commissions--infested Russia to become the agents of
the ruling Party. These people had every opportunity to see things as
they were, to get close to the Russian people, and to learn from them
the whole terrible truth. But they preferred to side with the
Government, to listen to its interpretation of causes and effects. Then
they went forth to misrepresent and to lie deliberately in behalf of the
Bolsheviki, as the Entente agents had lied and misrepresented the
Russian Revolution.
Nor did the sincere Communists realize the disgrace of the
situation--not even Angelica Balabanova. Yet she had good judgment of
character and knew how to appraise the people who flocked to Russia. Her
experience with Mrs. Clare Sheridan was characteristic. The lady had
been smuggled into Russia before Moscow realized that she was the cousin
of Winston Churchill. She was obsessed by the desire “to sculp”
prominent Communists. She had also begged Angelica to sit for her.
“Lenin, Trotsky, and other leaders are going to; aren’t you?” she
pleaded. Angelica, who hated sensationalism in any form, resented the
presence in Russia of these superficial visitors. “I asked her,” she
afterward related, “if she would have thought of ‘sculping’ Lenin three
years ago when the English Government denounced him as a German spy.
Lenin did not make the Revolution. The Russian people made it. I told
this Mrs. Sheridan that she would do better to ‘sculp’ Russian
workingmen and women who were the real heroes of the Revolution. I know
she did not like what I said. But I don’t care. I can’t stand people to
whom the Russian struggle is mere copy for poor imitations or cheap
display.”
Now the new delegates were beginning to arrive. They were royally
welcomed and fêted. They were taken to show schools, children’s homes,
colonies, and model factories. It was the traditional Potemkin
villages[D] that were shown the visitors. They were graciously received
and “talked to” by Lenin and Trotsky, treated to theatres, concerts,
ballets, excursions, and military parades. In short, nothing was left
undone to put the delegates into a frame of mind favourable to the great
plan that was to be revealed to them at the Red Trade Union and the
Third International Congresses. There were also continuous private
conferences where the delegates were subjected to a regular third
degree, Lozovsky--prominent Bolshevik labour leader--and his retinue
seeking to ascertain their attitude to the Third International, the
dictatorship of the proletariat, and similar subjects. Here and there
was a delegate who refused to divulge the instructions of his
organization on the ground that he was pledged to report only to the
Congress. But such naïve people reckoned without their host. They soon
found themselves ostracized and at the Congress they were given no
opportunity to make themselves heard effectively.
The majority of the delegates were more pliable. They learned quickly
that pledges and responsibilities were considered bourgeois
superstitions. To show their ultra-radicalism they quickly divested
themselves of them. They became the echoes of Zinoviev, Lozovsky, and
other leaders.
The American delegates to the Red Trade Union International were most
conspicuous by their lack of personality. They accepted without question
every proposition and suggestion of the Chair. The most flagrant
intrigues and political machinations and brazen suppression of those
who would not be cajoled or bullied into blind adherence found ready
support by the American Communist crew and the aides they had brought
with them.
The Bolsheviki know how to set the stage to produce an impression. In
the staging of the two Congresses held in July, 1921, they outdid
themselves. The background for the Congress of the Third International
was the Kremlin. In the royal halls where once the all-powerful Romanovs
had sat, the awed delegates hung with bated breath upon every word
uttered by their pope, Lenin, and the other Grand Seigneurs of the
Communist Church. On the eve of the Congress a great meeting was held in
the big theatre to which only those whose passports had been approved by
the All-Russian Tcheka were admitted. The streets leading to the theatre
were turned into a veritable military camp. Tchekists and soldiers on
foot and on horseback created the proper atmosphere for the Communist
conclave. At the meeting resolutions were passed extending fraternal
greetings to “the revolutionists in capitalist prisons.” At that very
moment every Russian prison was filled with revolutionists but no
greetings were sent to them. So all-pervading was Moscow hypnotism that
not a single voice was raised to point out the farce of Bolshevik
sympathy for political prisoners.
The Red Trade Union Congress was set on a less pretentious scale in the
House of the Trade Unions. But no details were overlooked to get the
proper effects. “Delegates” from Palestine and Korea--men who had not
been out of Russia for years--delegates from the great industrial
centres of Bokhara, Turkestan, and Adzerbeydzhan, packed the Congress to
swell the Communist vote and help carry every Communist proposition.
They were there to teach the workers of Europe and America how to
reconstruct their respective countries and to establish Communism after
the world revolution.
The plan perfected by Moscow during the year 1920-21, and which was a
complete reversal of Communist principles and tactics, was very
skilfully and subtly unrolled--by slow degrees--before the credulous
delegates. The Red Trade Union International was to embrace all
revolutionary and syndicalist organizations of the world, with Moscow as
its Mecca and the Third International as its Prophet. All minor
revolutionary labour organizations were to be dissolved and Communist
units formed instead within the existing conservative trade union
bodies. The very people who a year ago had issued the famous Bull of
twenty-one points, they who had excommunicated every heretic unwilling
to submit to the orders of the Holy See--the Third International--and
who had applied every invective to labour in the 2nd and the 2½
Internationals, were now making overtures to the most reactionary labour
organizations and “resoluting” against the best efforts of the
revolutionary pioneers in the Trade Union movement of every country.
Here again the American delegates proved themselves worthy of their
hire. Most of them had sprung from the Industrial Workers of the World;
had indeed arisen to “fame and glory” on the shoulders of that militant
American labour body. Some of the delegates had valiantly escaped to
safety, unselfishly preferring the Hôtel de Luxe to Leavenworth
Penitentiary, leaving their comrades behind in American prisons and
their friends to refund the bonds they had heroically forfeited. While
Industrial Workers continued to suffer persecution in capitalistic
America, the renegade I. W. W.’s living in comfort and safety in Moscow
maligned and attacked their former comrades and schemed to destroy
their organization. Together with the Bolsheviki they were going to
carry out the job begun by the American Vigilantes and the Ku Klux Klan
to exterminate the I. W. W. _Les extrêmes ce touchent_.
While the Communists were passing eloquent resolutions of protest
against the imprisonment of revolutionaries in foreign countries, the
Anarchists in the Bolshevik prisons of Russia were being driven to
desperation by their long imprisonment without opportunity for a hearing
or trial. To force the hand of the Government the Anarchists
incarcerated in the Taganka (Moscow) decided on a hunger strike to the
death. The French, Spanish, and Italian Anarcho-syndicalists, when
informed of the situation, promised to raise the question at an early
session of the Labour Congress. Some, however, suggested that the
Government be first approached on the matter. Thereupon a Delegate
Committee was chosen, including the well-known English labour leader,
Tom Mann, to call upon the Little Father in the Kremlin. The Committee
visited Lenin. The latter refused to have the Anarchists released on the
ground that “they were too dangerous,” but the final result of the
interview was a promise that they would be permitted to leave Russia;
should they, however, return without permission, they would be shot. The
next day Lenin’s promise was substantiated by a letter of the Central
Committee of the Communist Party, signed by Trotsky, reiterating what
Lenin had said. Naturally the threat of shooting was omitted in the
official letter.
The hunger strikers in the Taganka accepted the conditions of
deportation. They had for years fought and bled for the Revolution and
now they were compelled to become Ahasueruses in foreign lands or suffer
slow mental and physical death in Bolshevik dungeons. The Moscow
Anarchist groups chose Alexander Berkman and A. Shapiro as their
representatives on the Delegates’ Committee to arrange with the
Government the conditions of the release and deportation of the
imprisoned Anarchists.
In view of this settlement of the matter the intention of a public
protest at the Congress was abandoned by the delegates. Great was their
amazement when, just before the close of the Congress, Bukharin--in the
name of the Central Committee of the Communist Party--launched into a
scurrilous attack on the Anarchists. Some of the foreign delegates,
outraged by the dishonourable proceeding, demanded an opportunity to
reply. That demand was finally granted to a representative of the French
delegation after Chairman Lozovsky had exhausted every demagogic trick
in a vain attempt to silence the dissenters.
At no time during the protracted negotiations on behalf of the
imprisoned Anarchists and the last disgraceful proceedings at the Red
Trade Union Congress did the American Communist delegates make a
protest. Loudly they had shouted for political amnesty in America, but
not a word had they to say in favour of the liberation of the politicals
in Russia. One of the group, approached on behalf of the hunger
strikers, exclaimed: “What are a few lives or even a few hundred of them
as against the Revolution!” To such Communist minds the Revolution had
no bearing on justice and humanity.
In the face of abject want, with men, women, and children hungrily
watching the white bread baked for the Luxe Hotel in its adjoining
bakery, one of the American fraternal delegates wrote to a publication
at home that “the workers in Russia control the industries and are
directing the affairs of the country; they get everything free and need
no money.” This noble delegate lived in the palatial home of the former
Sugar King of Russia and enjoyed also the hospitality of the Luxe. He
indeed needed no money. But he knew that the workers lacked even the
basic necessities and that without money they were as helpless in Russia
as in any other country, the week’s _payok_ not being sufficient for two
days’ existence. Another delegate published glowing accounts dwelling on
the absence of prostitution and crime in Moscow. At the same time the
Tcheka was daily executing hold-up-men, and on the Tverskaya and the
Pushkin Boulevard, near the Luxe Hotel, street women mobbed the
delegates with their attentions. Their best customers were the very
delegates who waxed so enthusiastic about the wonders of the Bolshevik
régime.
The Bolsheviki realized the value of such champions and appreciated
their services. They sent them forth into the world generously equipped
in every sense, to perpetuate the monstrous delusion that the Bolsheviki
and the Revolution are identical and that the workers have come into
their own “under the proletarian dictatorship.” Woe to those who dare to
tear the mask from the lying face. In Russia they are put against the
wall, exiled to slow death in famine districts, or banished from the
country. In Europe and America such heretics are dragged through the
mire and morally lynched. Everywhere the unscrupulous tools of the great
disintegrator, the Third International, spread distrust and hatred in
labour and radical ranks. Formerly ideals and integrity were the impulse
to revolutionary activity. Social movements were founded upon the inner
needs of each country. They were maintained and supported by the
interest and zeal of the workers themselves. Now all this is condemned
as worthless. Instead the golden rain of Moscow is depended onto produce
a rich crop of Communist organizations and publications. Even uprisings
may be organized to deceive and mislead the people as to the quality and
strength of the Communist Party. In reality, everything is built on a
foundation that crumbles to pieces the moment Moscow withdraws its
financial support.
During the two Congresses held in July, 1921, the friends and comrades
of Maria Spiridonova circulated a manifesto which had been sent by them
to the Central Committee of the Communist Party and to the main
representatives of the Government, calling attention to the condition
of Spiridonova and demanding her release for the purpose of adequate
medical treatment and care.
A prominent foreign woman delegate to the Third Congress of the
Communist International was approached. She promised to see Trotsky, and
later it was reported that he had said that Spiridonova was “still too
dangerous to be liberated.” It was only after accounts of her condition
had appeared in the European Socialist press that she was released, on
condition that she return to prison on her recovery. Her friends in
whose care she is at present face the alternative of letting Spiridonova
die or turning her over to the Tcheka.
CHAPTER IX
EDUCATION AND CULTURE
The proudest claims of the Bolsheviki are education, art, and culture.
Communist propaganda literature and Bolshevik agents at home and abroad
constantly sing the praises of these great achievements.
To the casual observer it may indeed appear that the Bolsheviki have
accomplished wonders in this field. They have organized more schools
than existed under the Tsar, and they have made them accessible to the
masses. This is true of the larger cities. But in the provinces the
existing schools met the opposition of the local Bolsheviki, who closed
most of them on the alleged ground of counter-revolutionary activities,
or because of lack of Communist teachers. While, then, in the large
centres the percentage of children attending schools and the number of
higher educational institutions is greater than in the past, the same
does not apply to the rest of Russia. Still, so far as quantity is
concerned, the Bolsheviki deserve credit for their educational work and
the general diffusion of education.
In the case of the theatres no reservations have been made. All were
permitted to continue their performances when factories were shut down
for want of fuel. The opera, ballet, and; Lunacharsky’s plays were
elaborately staged, and the _Proletcult_--organized to advance
proletarian culture--was generously subsidized even when the famine was
at its height. It is also true that the Government printing presses were
kept busy day and night manufacturing propaganda literature and issuing
the old classics. At the same time the imagists and futurists gathered
unmolested in Café Domino and other places. The palaces and museums were
kept up in admirable condition. In any other starved, blockaded, and
attacked country all this would have been a very commendable showing.
In Russia, however, two revolutions had taken place. To be sure, the
February Revolution was not far-reaching. Still, it brought about
political changes without which there might not have been an October. It
also released great cultural forces from the prisons and Siberia--a
valuable element without which the educational work of the Bolsheviki
could not have been undertaken.
It was the October Revolution which struck deepest into the vitals of
Russia. It uprooted the old values and cleared the ground for new
conceptions and forms of life. Inasmuch as the Bolsheviki became the
sole medium of articulating and interpreting the promise of the
Revolution, the earnest student will not be content merely with the
increase of schools, the continuation of the ballet, or the good
condition of the museums. He will want to know whether education,
culture, and art in Bolshevik Russia symbolize the spirit of the
Revolution, whether they serve to quicken the imagination and broaden
the horizon; above all, whether they have released and helped to apply
the latent qualities of the masses.
Critical inquiry in Russia is a dangerous thing. No wonder so many
newcomers avoided looking beneath the surface. To them it was enough
that the Montessori system, the educational ideas of Professor Dewey,
and dancing by the Dalcroze method have been “adopted” by Russia. I do
not contend against these innovations. But I insist that they have no
bearing whatever on the Revolution; they do not prove that the
Bolshevik educational experiment is superior to similar efforts in other
countries, where they have been achieved without a revolution and the
terrible price it involves.
State monopoly of thought is everywhere interpreting education to suit
its own purpose. Similarly the Bolsheviki, to whom the State is supreme,
use education to further their own ends. But while the monopoly of
thought in other countries has not succeeded in entirely checking the
spirit of free inquiry and critical analysis, the “proletarian
dictatorship” has completely paralysed every attempt at independent
investigation. The Communist criterion is dominant. The least divergence
from official dogma and opinion on the part of teachers, educators, or
pupils exposes them to the general charge of counter-revolution,
resulting in discharge and expulsion, if nothing more drastic.
In a previous chapter I have mentioned the case of the Moscow University
students expelled and exiled for protesting against Tcheka violence
toward the political prisoners in the Butyrki. But it was not only such
“political” offences that were punished. Offences of a purely academic
nature were treated in the same manner. Thus the objection of some
professors to Communist interference in the methods of instruction was
sternly suppressed. Teachers and students who supported the professors
were severely punished. I know a professor of sociology and literature,
a brilliant scholar and a Revolutionist, who was discharged from the
Moscow University because, as an Anarchist, he encouraged the critical
faculty of his pupils. He is but one instance of the numerous cases of
non-Communist intellectuals who, under one pretext or another, are
systematically hounded and finally eliminated from Bolshevik
institutions. The Communist “cells” in control of every classroom have
created an atmosphere of distrust and suspicion in which real education
cannot thrive.
It is true that the Bolsheviki have striven to carry education and
culture into the Red Army and the villages. But here again the same
conditions prevail. Communism is the State religion and, like all
religions, it discourages the critical attitude and frowns upon
independent inquiry. Yet without the capacity for parallelism and
opportunity for verification education is valueless.
The _Proletcult_ is the pet child of the Bolsheviki. Like most parents,
they claim for their offspring extraordinary talents. They hold it up
as the great genius who is destined to enrich the world with new values.
Henceforth the masses shall no longer drink from the poisonous well of
bourgeois culture. Out of their own creative impulse and through their
own efforts the proletariat shall bring forth great treasures in
literature, art, and music. But like most child prodigies, the
_Proletcult_ did not live up to its early promise. Before long it proved
itself below the average, incapable of innovation, lacking originality,
and without sustaining power. Already in 1920 I was told by two of the
foremost foster-fathers of the _Proletcult_, Gorki and Lunacharsky, that
it was a failure.
In Petrograd, Moscow, and throughout my travels I had occasion to study
the efforts of the _Proletcult_. Whether expressed in printed form, on
the stage, in clay or colour, they were barren of ideas or vision, and
showed not a trace of the inner urge which impels creative art. They
were hopelessly commonplace. I do not doubt that the masses will some
day create a new culture, new art values, new forms of beauty. But these
will come to life from the inner necessity of the people themselves, and
not through an arbitrary will imposed upon them.
The mechanistic approach to art and culture and the _idée fixe_ that
nothing must express itself outside of the channels of the State have
stultified the cultural and artistic expression of the Russian people.
In poetry and literature, in drama, painting, and music not a single
epic of the Revolution has been produced during five years. This is the
more remarkable when one bears in mind how rich Russia was in works of
art and how close her writers and poets were to the soul of the Russian
people. Yet in the greatest upheaval in the world’s history no one has
come forward with pen or brush or lyre to give artistic expression to
the miracle or to set to music the storm that carried the Russian people
forward. Works of art, like new-born man, come in pain and travail.
Verily the five years of Revolution should have proved very rich
spiritually and creatively. For in those years the soul of Russia has
gone through a thousand crucifixions. Yet in this regard Russia was
never before so poor and desolate.
The Bolsheviki claim that a revolutionary period is not conducive to
creative art. That contention is not borne out by the French Revolution.
To mention only the Marseillaise, the great music of which lives and
will live. The French Revolution was rich in spiritual effort, in
poetry, painting, science, and in its great literature and letters. But,
then, the French Revolution was never so completely in the bondage of
one dogmatic idea as has been the case with Russia. The Jacobins indeed
strove hard to fetter the spirit of the French Revolution and they paid
dearly for it. The Bolsheviki have been copying the destructive phases
of the French Revolution. But they have done nothing that can compare
with the constructive achievements of that period.
I have said that nothing outstanding has been created in Russia. To be
exact, I must except the great revolutionary poem, “Twelve,” by
Alexander Blok. But even that gifted genius, deeply inspired by the
Revolution, and imbued with the fire that had come to purify all life,
soon ceased to create. His experience with the Tcheka (he was arrested
in 1919), the terrorism all about him, the senseless waste of life and
energy, the suffering and hopelessness of it all depressed his spirit
and broke his health. Soon Alexander Blok was no more.
Even a Blok could not create with an iron band compressing his
brain--the iron band of Bolshevik distrust, persecution, and censorship.
How far-reaching the latter was I realized from a document the Museum
Expedition had discovered in Vologda. It was a “very confidential,
secret” order issued in 1920 and signed by Ulyanova, the sister of Lenin
and chief of the Central Educational Department. It directed the
libraries throughout Russia to “eliminate all non-Communist literature,
except the Bible, the Koran, and the classics”--including even
Communistic writings dealing with problems which were being “solved in a
different way” by the existing régime. The condemned literature was to
be sent to paper mills “because of the scarcity of paper.”
Such edicts and the State monopoly of all material, printing machinery,
and mediums of circulation exclude every possibility of the birth of
creative work. The editor of a little coöperative paper published a
brilliant poem, unsigned. It was the cry of a tortured poet’s soul in
protest against the continued terror. The editor was promptly arrested
and his little shop closed. The author would probably have been shot had
his whereabouts been known. No doubt there are many agonized cries in
Russia, but they are muffled cries. No one may hear them or interpret
their meaning. The future alone has the key to the cultural and artistic
treasures now hidden from the Argus eyes of the Department of Education
and the numerous other censorial institutions.
Russia is now the dumping ground for mediocrities in art and culture.
They fit into the narrow groove, they dance attendance on the
all-powerful political commissars. They live in the Kremlin and skim the
cream of life, while the real poets--like Blok and others--die of want
and despair.
The void in literature, poetry, and art is felt most in the theatres,
the State theatres especially. I once sat through five hours of acting
in the Alexandrovsky Theatre in Petrograd when “Othello” was staged,
with Andreyeva, Gorki’s wife, as Desdemona. It is hard to imagine a play
more atrociously presented. I saw most of the other plays in the State
theatre and not one of them gave any hint of the earthquake that had
shaken Russia. There was no new note in interpretation, scenery, or
method. It was all commonplace and inadequate, innocent even of the
advancement made in dramatic art in bourgeois countries, and utterly
inconsequential in the light of the Revolution.
The only exception was the Moscow Art Theatre. Its performance of
Gorki’s “Night’s Lodging” was especially powerful. Real art was also
presented in the Stanislavsky Studio. These were the only oases in the
art desert of Russia. But even the Art Theatre showed no trace of the
great revolutionary events Russia was living through. The repertoire
which had made the Art Theatre famous a quarter of a century before
still continued night after night. There were no new Ibsens, Tolstois,
or Tchekovs to thunder their protest against the new evils, and if there
had been, no theatre could have staged them. It was safer to interpret
the past than to voice the present. Yet, though the Art Theatre kept
strictly within the past, Stanislavsky was often in difficulties with
the authorities. He had suffered arrest and was once evicted from his
studio. He had just moved into a new place when I visited him with
Louise Bryant who had asked me to act as her interpreter. Stanislavsky
looked forlorn and discouraged among his still unpacked boxes of stage
property. I saw him also on several other occasions and found him almost
hopeless about the future of the theatre in Russia. “The theatre can
grow only through inspiration from new works of art,” he would say;
“without it the interpretive artist must stagnate and the theatre
deteriorate.” But Stanislavsky himself was too much the creative artist
to stagnate. He sought other forms of interpretation. His newest venture
was an attempt to bring singing and dramatic acting into coöperative
harmony. I attended a dress rehearsal of such a performance and found it
very impressive. The effect of the voice was greatly enhanced by the
realistic finesse which Stanislavsky achieved in dramatic art. But these
efforts were entirely the work of himself and his little circle of art
students; they had nothing to do with the Bolsheviki of the
_Proletcult_.
There are some other innovations, begun long before the advent of the
Bolsheviki and permitted by them to continue because they have no
bearing on the Russian actuality. The Kamerney Theatre registers its
revolt against the imposition of the play upon the acting, against the
limitation of expression involved in the orthodox interpretation of
dramatic art. It achieves noteworthy results by the new mode of acting,
complemented by original scenery and music, but mostly in plays of a
lighter genre.
Another unique attempt is essayed by the Semperante Theatre. It is based
on the conception that the written drama checks the growth and
diversity of the interpretive artist. Plays should therefore be
improvised, thereby affording greater scope to spontaneity, inspiration,
and mood of the artist. It is a novel experiment, but as the improvised
plays must also keep within the limits of the State censorship, the work
of the Semperantists suffers from a lack of ideas.
The most interesting cultural endeavour I met in Kiev was the work of
the Jewish _Kulturliga_. Its nucleus was organized in 1918 to minister
to the needs of pogrom victims. They had to be provided for, sheltered,
fed, and clothed. Young Jewish literary men and an able organizer
brought the _Kulturliga_ to life. They did not content themselves with
ministering only to the physical needs of the unfortunates. They
organized children’s homes, public schools, high schools, evening
classes; later a seminary and art school were added. When we visited
Kiev the _Kulturliga_ owned a printing plant and a studio, besides its
other educational institutions, and had succeeded in organizing 230
branches in the Ukraina. At a literary evening and a special performance
arranged in honour of the Expedition we were able to witness the
extraordinary achievements of the _Kulturliga_.
At the literary evening Perez’s poem “The Four Seasons” was rendered by
recitative group singing. The effect was striking. Nature at the birth
of spring, birds sending forth their joyous song of love, the mystery
and romance of mating, the ecstasy of renewing and becoming, the
rumbling of the approaching storm, the crash of the mighty giants struck
by lightning, rain softly falling, the leaves fluttering to earth, the
somberness and pathos of autumn, the last desperate resistance of Nature
against death, the trees shrouded in white--all were made vivid and
alive by the new form of collective recitative. Every nuance of Nature
was brought out by the group of artists on the improvised little stage
of the _Kulturliga_.
The next day we visited the art school. The children’s classes were the
more interesting. There was no discipline, no rigid rules, no
mechanistic control of their art impulses. The children did drawing,
painting, and modelling--mostly Jewish motifs: a pogromed city, by a boy
of fourteen; a devout Jew in his _tales_ praying in the synagogue,
mortal fear of the pogrom savages written in his every feature; an old
Jewish woman, the tragic remnant of a whole family slaughtered; and
similar scenes from the life of the Russian Jew. The efforts were often
crude, but there was about them nothing of the stilted manner
characteristic of the _Proletcult_. There was no attempt to impose a
definite formula on art expression.
Later we attended the studio. In a bare room, without scenery, lighting,
costumes, or make-up, the artists of the _Kulturliga_ gave several
one-act plays and presented also an unpublished work found among the
effects of a playwright. The performance had an artistic touch and
finish I had rarely seen before. The play is called “The End of the
World.” The wrath of God rolls like thunder across the world, commanding
man to prepare for the end. Yet man heeds not. Then all the elements are
let loose, pursuing one another in wild fury; the storm rages and
shrieks, and man’s groans are drowned in the terrific hour of judgment.
The world goes under, and all is dead.
Then something begins to move again. Black shadows symbolizing half
beast, half man, with distorted faces and hesitating movements, crouch
out of their caves. In awe and fear they stretch their trembling hands
toward one another. Haltingly at first, then with growing confidence,
man attempts in common effort with his fellows to lift himself out of
the black void. Light begins to break. Again a thunderous voice rolls
over the earth. It is the voice of fulfilment.
It was a stirring artistic achievement.
When the _Liga_ was first organized the Bolsheviki subsidized its work.
Later, when they returned to Kiev after its evacuation by Denikin, they
gave very scanty support to the educational institutions of the
_Kulturliga_. This unfriendly attitude was due to the _Yevkom_, the
Jewish Communist Section, which intrigues against every independent
Jewish cultural endeavour. When we left Kiev the ardent workers of the
_Liga_ were much worried about the future of the organization. I am not
in a position to say at this writing whether the _Liga_ was able to
continue its work or was closed altogether. However, laudable as were
the innovations of the _Kulturliga_ and the attempts of the Kamerney and
Semperante at new modes of expression, they could not be considered as
having any bearing on the Revolution.
State support to so-called art is given mostly to Lunacharsky’s dramatic
ventures and other Communist interpretations of culture. When I first
met Lunacharsky I thought him much less the politician than the artist.
I heard him lecture at the Sverdlov University before a large audience
of workingmen and women, popularizing the origin and development of art.
It was done splendidly. When I met him again he was so thoroughly in the
meshes of Party discipline and so completely shorn of his power that
every effort of his was frustrated. Then he began to write plays. That
was his undoing. He could not employ the material of the actual reality,
and the February Revolution, Kerensky, and the Constituent Assembly had
already been caricatured to a thread. Lunacharsky turned to the German
Revolution. He wrote “The Smith and the Councillor,” a sort of
burlesque. The play is so amateurish and commonplace that no theatre
outside of Russia would have cared to present it. But Lunacharsky was in
control of the theatres--why not exploit them for his own works? The
play was staged at great cost, at a time when millions on the Volga were
starving. But even that could have been forgiven if the play had any
meaning or contained anything suggestive of the tragedy of Russia.
Instead, it lacked all life and was rich only in vulgar scenes
portraying Ludendorff, the renegade Social Democratic President, a
degenerate aristocrat, and a princess of the _demimonde_. The drunken
men frantically scramble for the possession of the woman, literally
tearing her clothing off her back. A revolting scene, yet in the whole
audience of teachers and members of the Department of Education not a
single protest was voiced against the affront to the taste and
intelligence of revolutionary Russia. On the contrary, they applauded
the playwright, for those sycophants depended on Lunacharsky for their
rations. They could not afford to be critical.
Vanity and power break the strongest character, and Lunacharsky is not
strong. It is his lack of will which makes him submit, against his
better judgment, to the galling discipline and espionage placed over
him. Perhaps he avenges himself by forcing upon the public at large and
the actors under his charge his dramatic works.
After a careful analysis of the educational and cultural efforts of the
Bolsheviki the earnest student will come to the following conclusions:
first, there is quantity rather than substance in the education of
Russia to-day; secondly, the theatres, the ballet, and the museums
receive generous support from the Government, but the reason for it is
not so much love of art as the necessity of finding some outlet for the
checked and stifled aspirations of the people.
The political dictatorship of the Bolsheviki with one stroke suppressed
the social phase of life in Russia. There was no forum even for the most
inoffensive social intercourse, no clubs, no meeting places, no
restaurants, not even a dance hall. I remember the shocked expression of
Zorin when I asked him if the young people could not occasionally meet
for a dance free from Communist supervision. “Dance halls are gathering
places for counter-revolutionists; we closed them,” he informed me. The
emotional and human needs of the people were considered dangerous to the
régime.
On the other hand, the dreadful existence--hunger, cold, and
darkness--was sapping the life of the people. Gloom and despair by day,
congestion, lack of light and heat at night, and no escape from it all.
There was, of course, the political life of the Communist Party--a life
stern and forbidding, a life without colour or warmth. The masses had no
contact with or interest in that life, and they were not permitted to
have anything of their own. A people bottled up is a menace. Some outlet
had to be provided, some relief from the black despair. The theatre, the
opera, and the museum were that relief. What if the theatres gave
nothing new? What if the opera had bad singing? And the ballet
continued to move in the old toe circles? The places were warm; they had
light. They furnished the opportunity for human association and one
could forget the misery and loneliness--one might even forget the
Tcheka. The theatre, the opera, the ballet, and the museum became the
safety valve of the Bolshevik régime. And as the theatres gave nothing
of protest, nothing new or vital, they were permitted to continue. They
solved a great and difficult problem and furnished excellent copy for
foreign propaganda.
CHAPTER X
EXPLOITING THE FAMINE
Late in the summer of 1921 there came the harrowing news of the famine.
To those who had kept in touch with inner affairs the information was
not quite unexpected. We had learned during the early part of the summer
that a large proportion of the population was doomed to death from
starvation. At that time a group of scientific agriculturists had
assembled in Moscow. Their report showed that, owing to bureaucratic
centralization, and corruption and delay in seed distribution, timely
and sufficient sowing had been prevented. The Soviet press kept the
report of the agricultural conference from the public. But in July items
began to appear in the _Pravda_ and the _Izvestia_ telling of the
terrible drought in the Volga region and the fearful conditions in the
famine-stricken districts.
Immediately various groups and individuals came forward ready to
coöperate with the Government in coping with the calamity.
The Left Wing elements--Anarchists, Social Revolutionists, and
Maximalists--offered to organize relief work and to collect funds. But
they received no encouragement from the Soviet authorities. On the other
hand, elements of the Right, the Cadets (Constitutional Democrats), were
received with open arms. Kishkin, Minister of Finance under Kerensky,
Mme. Kuskova, Prokopovitch, and other prominent Conservatives, who had
bitterly fought the Revolution, were accepted by the Bolsheviki. These
people had been denounced as counter-revolutionists and repeatedly
arrested and imprisoned, yet they were given preference and permitted to
organize the group known as the Citizens’ Committee. When the latter
refused to work under the guardianship of the Moscow Soviet, insisting
upon complete autonomy and the right to publish its own paper, the
Government consented. Such discrimination in favour of reactionaries as
against those who had faithfully stood by the Revolution could be
explained only in two ways. First, the Bolsheviki considered it
dangerous to grant the Left elements free access to the peasantry;
secondly, it was necessary to make an impression on Europe, which could
be effectively done by means of the most conservative group. This became
clear even before the Citizens’ Committee began its relief work.
In the beginning the Committee received the entire support of the
Government. A special building was assigned for its headquarters and it
was granted the right to issue its own paper, called _Pomoshtch_
(Succour). Members of the Committee were also promised permission to go
to Western Europe for the purpose of arousing interest and getting
support for the famine stricken. Two numbers of the paper were issued.
Its appearance caused significant comment: it was an exact reproduction,
in size, type, and general form, of the old _Vyedomosti_, the most
reactionary sheet under the former régime. The publication was, of
course, very guarded in its tone. But between the lines one could read
its antagonism to the ruling Party. Its first issue contained a letter
from the Metropolitan Tikhon, wherein he commanded the faithful to send
their contributions to him. He assured his flock that he was to have
complete control of the distribution of the donations. The Citizens’
Committee was given _carte blanche_ in carrying on its work, and the
fact was heralded by the Bolsheviki as proof of their liberality and
willingness to coöperate with all elements in famine relief.
Presently the Soviet Government entered into an agreement with the
American Relief Administration and other European organizations
regarding aid for the Volga sufferers, and then--the headquarters of the
Citizens’ Committee were raided, the paper suppressed, and the leading
members of the Committee thrown into the Tcheka on the usual charge of
counter-revolution. Now it was reasonably certain that Mme. Kuskova and
her co-workers were no more counter-revolutionary when they were
permitted to organize Volga relief than they had been at any time since
1917. Why, then, did the Communist State accept them while rejecting the
assistance of true revolutionists? For no other reason than propaganda
purposes. When the Citizens’ Committee had served that purpose it was
kicked overboard in true Bolshevik fashion. Only one person the Tcheka
dared not touch--Vera Nikolayevna Figner, the venerable revolutionist.
Great humanitarian that she is, she joined the Citizens’ Committee and
devoted herself to its work with the same zeal that had made her so
effective as one of the leading spirits of the _Narodnaya Volya_.
Twenty-two years of living death in Schlüsselburg had failed to destroy
her ardour. When the Citizens’ Committee was arrested, Vera Nikolayevna
demanded to share the same fate, but the Tcheka knew the spiritual
influence of this woman in Russia and abroad, and she was left in peace.
The other members of the Citizens’ Committee were kept in prison for a
long time, then exiled to remote parts of Russia and finally deported.
Except for the foreign organizations doing relief work in Russia, the
Soviet Government could now stand before the world as the sole dispenser
of support to the starving in the famine district. Kalinin, the
marionette President of the Socialist Republic, equipped with much
propaganda literature and surrounded by a large staff of Soviet
officials and foreign correspondents, made his triumphal march through
the stricken territory. It was widely heralded throughout the world, and
the desired effect was achieved. But the real work in the famine region
was carried on not so much by the official machine as by the great host
of unknown men and women from the ranks of the proletariat and the
intelligentsia. Most devotedly and with utter consecration they gave of
their own depleted energies. Many of them perished from typhus,
exposure, and exhaustion; some were slain by the power of darkness
which now, even more than in Tolstoi’s time, holds many sections of
Russia in its grip. Doctors, nurses, and relief workers were often
killed by the unfortunates they had come to aid, as evil spirits who had
willed the famine and the misfortunes of Russia. These were the real
heroes and martyrs, unknown and unsung.
CHAPTER XI
THE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC RESORTS TO DEPORTATION
The Tcheka had succeeded in terrorizing the whole people. The only
exceptions were the politicals, whose courage and devotion to their
ideals defied the Bolsheviki as it had the Romanovs. I knew many of
those brave spirits, and I saw in them the only hope to sustain one amid
the general wreckage. They were the living proof of the powerlessness of
terror against an Ideal.
Typical of this class was a certain Anarchist who had long been sought
for by the Tcheka as an important Makhnovetz. He was a member of the
military staff of the revolutionary _povstantsi_ of the Ukraina and the
close friend and counsellor of Makhno. He had already known him
intimately when they were together in _katorga_ in the days of the Tsar.
He had shared all the hardships and danger of the _povstantsi_ life and
participated in their campaigns against the enemies of the Revolution.
After the defeat of Wrangel and the last treachery of the Bolsheviki
toward Makhno, when the latter’s army had become scattered and many of
its members killed, this man succeeded in escaping the Bolshevik net. He
determined to come to Moscow, there to write a history of
Makhnovstchina. It was a perilous journey, made under most difficult
conditions, with death constantly treading his footsteps. Under an
assumed name he secured a tiny room in the environs of the capital. He
lived in most abject poverty, always in danger of his life, visiting his
wife in the city only under cover of darkness. Once in every twenty-four
hours he would come to the appointed place for a little respite and his
sole meal of the day, consisting of potatoes, herring, and tea. Every
moment he risked being recognized, for he was well known in Moscow, and
recognition meant summary execution. His wife also, if discovered, would
have met the same fate--the devoted woman who, though with child at the
time, had followed him to Moscow. After a desperate hunt for employment
she found a position in a _crèche_, but as pregnant women were not
accepted in such institutions, she had to disguise her condition. All
day long she had to be on her feet, attending to her duties, and living
in constant fear for the safety of her husband.
When the baby was born the situation became more aggravated. The woman
was harassed by her superiors because she had obtained the position
without their knowledge of her condition. Petty officialdom and hard
work exhausted her energies and the daily anxiety about the man she
loved nearly drove her frantic. Yet never a sign of all that troubled
her when the man would visit her.
Many evenings I spent with this couple. They were entirely cut off from
the outside world and former friends, all alone save for the fear of
discovery and death which was their constant companion. In the dreary,
damp room, the baby asleep, we passed many hours talking in subdued
voices about the Ukrainian peasantry and the Makhno movement. My friend
was familiar with every phase of it from personal experience, which he
was now incorporating into his book on Makhno. He was absorbed in that
work, which was for the first time to give to the world the truth about
Makhno and the _povstantsi_. Deeply concerned about his wife and child,
he was entirely oblivious to his own safety, though knowing that every
day the Tcheka net was drawn closer about him. With great difficulty he
was finally prevailed upon to leave his beloved Russia, as the only way
of saving his family. What a commentary on the Socialist Republic, whose
bravest and truest sons must keep in hiding or forsake their native
soil!
* * * * *
Life in Russia had become to me a constant torture; the need of breaking
my two years’ silence was imperative. During all the summer I was in the
throes of a bitter conflict between the necessity of leaving and my
inability to tear myself away from what had been an ideal to me. It was
like the tragic end of a great love to which one clings long after it is
no more.
In the midst of my struggle there happened an event which further served
to demonstrate the complete collapse of the Bolsheviki as
revolutionists. It was the announcement of the return to Russia of the
Tsarist General Slastchev, one of the most reactionary and brutal
militarists of the old régime. He had fought against the Revolution from
its very beginning and had led some of the Wrangel forces in the Crimea.
He was guilty of fiendish barbarities to war prisoners and infamous as a
maker of pogroms. Now Slastchev recanted and was returning to “his
Fatherland.” This arch counter-revolutionist and Jew-baiter, together
with several other Tsarist generals and White guardists, was received by
the Bolsheviki with military honours. No doubt it was just retribution
that the anti-Semite had to salute the Jew Trotsky, his military
superior. But to the Revolution and the Russian people the triumphal
return of the imperialists was an outrage.
The old general had changed his colours but not his nature. In his
letter to the officers and men of the Wrangel Army he delivered himself
of the following:
I, Slastchev Krimsky, command you to return to your Fatherland and
into the fold of the Red Army. Our country needs our defense
against her enemies. I command you to return.
As a reward for his newly fledged love of the Socialist Fatherland
Slastchev “Krimsky” was commissioned to quell the Karelian peasants who
demanded self-determination, and Slastchev had the opportunity of giving
full play to the autocratic powers he was vested with.
Military receptions and honours for the man who had been foremost in the
attempt to crush the Revolution, and imprisonment or death for the
lovers of liberty! At the same time the true sons of Russia, who had
defended the Revolution against every attack and had aided the
Bolsheviki to political power, were made homeless by deportation to
foreign lands. A more tragic débâcle history has never before witnessed.
The first to be deported by the “revolutionary” Government were ten
Anarchists, most of them known in the international revolutionary
movement as tried idealists and martyrs for their cause. Among them was
Volin, a highly cultured man, a gifted writer and lecturer, who had been
editor of various Anarchist publications in Europe and America. In
Russia, where he returned in 1917, he helped to organize the Ukrainian
Confederation of _Nabat_ and, was for a time lecturer for the Soviet
Department of Education in Kharkov. Volin had been a member of an
Anarchist partisan military unit that fought against Austro-German
occupation, and for a considerable time he also conducted educational
and cultural work in the Makhno Army. During the year 1921 he was
imprisoned by the Bolsheviki and deported after the hunger strike of the
Taganka Anarchists which lasted ten and a half days.
In the same group was G. Maximoff, an Anarchist of many years’
standing. Before the Revolution he had been active among the students of
the Petrograd University and also among the peasants. He participated in
all the revolutionary struggles beginning with the February Revolution,
was one of the editors of _Golos Truda_ and member of the All-Russian
Secretariat of Anarcho-syndicalists. He is an able and popular writer
and lecturer.
Mark Mratchny, another of the deported, has been an Anarchist since
1907. At the time when Hetman Skoropadsky ruled Ukraina with the help of
German bayonets, Mratchny was a member of the Revolutionary Bureau of
the students of Kharkov. He held the position of instructor in the
Soviet School Department of Kharkov, and later in Siberia. He edited the
_Nabat_ during the period of agreement between Makhno and the
Bolsheviki, and was later arrested together with the other Anarchists
who had come to Kharkov for the Anarchist Conference.
Among the deported was also Yartchuk, famous as one of the leaders of
the Kronstadt sailors in the uprising of July, 1917, a man who enjoyed
exceptional influence among the sailors and workers and whose idealism
and devotion are matters of historic record. In the group there were
also several students--mere youths who had participated in the Anarchist
hunger-strike in the Taganka prison.
* * * * *
To remain longer in Bolshevik Russia had become unbearable. I was
compelled to speak out, and decided to leave the country. Friends were
making arrangements to open a _sub rosa_ passage abroad, but just as all
preparations were completed we were informed of new developments. Berlin
Anarchists had made a demand upon the Soviet Government that passports
be issued for Alexander Berkman, A. Shapiro, and myself, to enable us to
attend the International Anarchist Congress which was to convene in
Berlin in December, 1921. Whether due to that demand or for other
reasons, the Soviet Government finally issued the required papers and on
December 1, 1921, I left Russia in the company of Alexander Berkman and
A. Shapiro. It was just one year and eleven months since I had set foot
on what I believed to be the promised land. My heart was heavy with the
tragedy of Russia. One thought stood out in bold relief: I must raise my
voice against the crimes committed in the name of the Revolution. I
would be heard regardless of friend or foe.
CHAPTER XII
AFTERWORD
Non-Bolshevik Socialist critics of the Russian failure contend that the
Revolution could not have succeeded in Russia because industrial
conditions had not reached the necessary climax in that country. They
point to Marx, who taught that a social revolution is possible only in
countries with a highly developed industrial system and its attendant
social antagonisms. They therefore claim that the Russian Revolution
could not be a social revolution, and that historically it had to evolve
along constitutional, democratic lines, complemented by a growing
industry, in order to ripen the country economically for the basic
change.
This orthodox Marxian view leaves an important factor out of
consideration--a factor perhaps more vital to the possibility and
success of a social revolution than even the industrial element. That is
the psychology of the masses at a given period. Why is there, for
instance, no social revolution in the United States, France, or even in
Germany? Surely these countries have reached the industrial development
set by Marx as the culminating stage. The truth is that industrial
development and sharp social contrasts are of themselves by no means
sufficient to give birth to a new society or to call forth a social
revolution. The necessary social consciousness, the required mass
psychology is missing in such countries as the United States and the
others mentioned. That explains why no social revolution has taken place
there.
In this regard Russia had the advantage of other more industrialized and
“civilized” lands. It is true that Russia was not as advanced
industrially as her Western neighbours. But the Russian mass psychology,
inspired and intensified by the February Revolution, was ripening at so
fast a pace that within a few months the people were ready for such
ultra-revolutionary slogans as “All power to the Soviets” and “The land
to the peasants, the factories to the workers.”
The significance of these slogans should not be under-estimated.
Expressing in a large degree the instinctive and semi-conscious will of
the people, they yet signified the complete social, economic, and
industrial reorganization of Russia. What country in Europe or America
is prepared to interpret such revolutionary mottoes into life? Yet in
Russia, in the months of June and July, 1917, these slogans became
popular and were enthusiastically and actively taken up, in the form of
direct action, by the bulk of the industrial and agrarian population of
more than 150 millions. That was sufficient proof of the “ripeness” of
the Russian people for the social revolution.
As to economic “preparedness” in the Marxian sense, it must not be
forgotten that Russia is preëminently an agrarian country. Marx’s dictum
presupposes the industrialization of the peasant and farmer population
in every highly developed society, as a step toward social fitness for
revolution. But events in Russia, in 1917, demonstrated that revolution
does not await this process of industrialization and--what is more
important--cannot be made to wait. The Russian peasants began to
expropriate the landlords and the workers took possession of the
factories without taking cognizance of Marxian dicta. This popular
action, by virtue of its own logic, ushered in the social revolution in
Russia, upsetting all Marxian calculations. The psychology of the Slav
proved stronger than social-democratic theories.
That psychology involved the passionate yearning for liberty nurtured by
a century of revolutionary agitation among all classes of society. The
Russian people had fortunately remained politically unsophisticated and
untouched by the corruption and confusion created among the proletariat
of other countries by “democratic” liberty and self-government. The
Russian remained, in this sense, natural and simple, unfamiliar with the
subtleties of politics, of parliamentary trickery, and legal makeshifts.
On the other hand, his primitive sense of justice and right was strong
and vital, without the disintegrating finesse of pseudo-civilization. He
knew what he wanted and he did not wait for “historic inevitability” to
bring it to him: he employed direct action. The Revolution to him was a
fact of life, not a mere theory for discussion.
Thus the social revolution took place in Russia in spite of the
industrial backwardness of the country. But to make the Revolution was
not enough. It was necessary for it to advance and broaden, to develop
into economic and social reconstruction. That phase of the Revolution
necessitated fullest play of personal initiative and collective effort.
The development and success of the Revolution depended on the broadest
exercise of the creative genius of the people, on the coöperation of the
intellectual and manual proletariat. Common interest is the _leit motif_
of all revolutionary endeavour, especially on its constructive side.
This spirit of mutual purpose and solidarity swept Russia with a mighty
wave in the first days of the October-November Revolution. Inherent in
that enthusiasm were forces that could have moved mountains if
intelligently guided by exclusive consideration for the well-being of
the whole people. The medium for such effective guidance was on hand:
the labour organizations and the coöperatives with which Russia was
covered as with a network of bridges combining the city with the
country; the Soviets which sprang into being responsive to the needs of
the Russian people; and, finally, the intelligentsia whose traditions
for a century expressed heroic devotion to the cause of Russia’s
emancipation.
But such a development was by no means within the programme of the
Bolsheviki. For several months following October they suffered the
popular forces to manifest themselves, the people carrying the
Revolution into ever-widening channels. But as soon as the Communist
Party felt itself sufficiently strong in the government saddle, it began
to limit the scope of popular activity. All the succeeding acts of the
Bolsheviki, all their following policies, changes of policies, their
compromises and retreats, their methods of suppression and persecution,
their terrorism and extermination of all other political views--all were
but the _means to an end_: the retaining of the State power in the hands
of the Communist Party. Indeed, the Bolsheviki themselves (in Russia)
made no secret of it. The Communist Party, they contended, is the
advance guard of the proletariat, and the dictatorship must rest in its
hands. Alas, the Bolsheviki reckoned without their host--without the
peasantry, whom neither the _razvyortska_, the Tcheka, nor the wholesale
shooting could persuade to support the Bolshevik régime. The peasantry
became the rock upon which the best-laid plans and schemes of Lenin were
wrecked. But Lenin, a nimble acrobat, was skilled in performing within
the narrowest margin. The new economic policy was introduced just in
time to ward off the disaster which was slowly but surely overtaking the
whole Communist edifice.
II
The “new economic policy” came as a surprise and a shock to most
Communists. They saw in it a reversal of everything that their Party
had been proclaiming--a reversal of Communism itself. In protest some of
the oldest members of the Party, men who had faced danger and
persecution under the old régime while Lenin and Trotsky lived abroad in
safety, left the Communist Party embittered and disappointed. The
leaders then declared a lockout. They ordered the clearing of the Party
ranks of all “doubtful” elements. Everybody suspected of an independent
attitude and those who did not accept the new economic policy as the
last word in revolutionary wisdom were expelled. Among them were
Communists who for years had rendered most devoted service. Some of
them, hurt to the quick by the unjust and brutal procedure, and shaken
to their depths by the collapse of what they held most high, even
resorted to suicide. But the smooth sailing of Lenin’s new gospel had to
be assured, the gospel of the sanctity of private property and the
freedom of cutthroat competition erected upon the ruins of four years of
revolution.
However, Communist indignation over the new economic policy merely
indicated the confusion of mind on the part of Lenin’s opponents. What
else but mental confusion could approve of the numerous acrobatic
political stunts of Lenin and yet grow indignant at the final
somersault, its logical culmination? The trouble with the devout
Communists was that they clung to the Immaculate Conception of the
Communist State which by the aid of the Revolution was to redeem the
world. But most of the leading Communists never entertained such a
delusion. Least of all Lenin.
During my first interview I received the impression that he was a shrewd
politician who knew exactly what he was about and that he would stop at
nothing to achieve his ends. After hearing him speak on several
occasions and reading his works I became convinced that Lenin had very
little concern in the Revolution and that Communism to him was a very
remote thing. The centralized political State was Lenin’s deity, to
which everything else was to be sacrificed. Someone said that Lenin
would sacrifice the Revolution to save Russia. Lenin’s policies,
however, have proven that he was willing to sacrifice both the
Revolution and the country; or at least part of the latter, in order to
realize his political scheme with what was left of Russia.
Lenin was the most pliable politician in history. He could be an
ultra-revolutionary, a compromiser and conservative at the same time.
When like a mighty wave the cry swept over Russia, “All power to the
Soviets!” Lenin swam with the tide. When the peasants took possession of
the land and the workers of the factories, Lenin not only approved of
those direct methods but went further. He issued the famous motto, “Rob
the robbers,” a slogan which served to confuse the minds of the people
and caused untold injury to revolutionary idealism. Never before did any
real revolutionist interpret social expropriation as the transfer of
wealth from one set of individuals to another. Yet that was exactly what
Lenin’s slogan meant. The indiscriminate and irresponsible raids, the
accumulation of the wealth of the former bourgeoisie by the new Soviet
bureaucracy, the chicanery practised toward those whose only crime was
their former status, were all the results of Lenin’s “Rob the robbers”
policy. The whole subsequent history of the Revolution is a kaleidoscope
of Lenin’s compromises and betrayal of his own slogans.
Bolshevik acts and methods since the October days may seem to contradict
the new economic policy. But in reality they are links in the chain
which was to forge the all-powerful, centralized Government with State
Capitalism as its economic expression. Lenin possessed clarity of vision
and an iron will. He knew how to make his comrades in Russia and outside
of it believe that his scheme was true Socialism and his methods the
revolution. No wonder that Lenin felt such contempt for his flock, which
he never hesitated to fling into their faces. “Only fools can believe
that Communism is possible in Russia now,” was Lenin’s reply to the
opponents of the new economic policy.
As a matter of fact, Lenin was right. True Communism was never attempted
in Russia, unless one considers thirty-three categories of pay,
different food rations, privileges to some and indifference to the great
mass as Communism.
In the early period of the Revolution it was comparatively easy for the
Communist Party to possess itself of power. All the revolutionary
elements, carried away by the ultra-revolutionary promises of the
Bolsheviki, helped the latter to power. Once in possession of the State
the Communists began their process of elimination. All the political
parties and groups which refused to submit to the new dictatorship had
to go. First the Anarchists and Left Social Revolutionists, then the
Mensheviki and other opponents from the Right, and finally everybody who
dared aspire to an opinion of his own. Similar was the fate of all
independent organizations. They were either subordinated to the needs of
the new State or destroyed altogether, as were the Soviets, the trade
unions and the coöperatives--three great factors for the realization of
the hopes of the Revolution.
The Soviets first manifested themselves in the revolution of 1905. They
played an important part during that brief but significant period.
Though the revolution was crushed, the Soviet idea remained rooted in
the minds and hearts of the Russian masses. At the first dawn which
illuminated Russia in February, 1917, the Soviets revived again and came
into bloom in a very short time. To the people the Soviets by no means
represented a curtailment of the spirit of the Revolution. On the
contrary, the Revolution was to find its highest, freest practical
expression through the Soviets. That was why the Soviets so
spontaneously and rapidly spread throughout Russia. The Bolsheviki
realized the significance of the popular trend and joined the cry. But
once in control of the Government the Communists saw that the Soviets
threatened the supremacy of the State. At the same time they could not
destroy them arbitrarily without undermining their own prestige at home
and abroad as the sponsors of the Soviet system. They began to shear
them gradually of their powers and finally to subordinate them to their
own needs.
The Russian trade unions were much more amenable to emasculation.
Numerically and in point of revolutionary fibre they were still in their
childhood. By declaring adherence to the trade unions obligatory the
Russian labour organizations gained in physical stature, but mentally
they remained in the infant stage. The Communist State became the wet
nurse of the trade unions. In return, the organizations served as the
flunkeys of the State. “A school for Communism,” said Lenin in the
famous controversy on the functions of the trade unions. Quite right.
But an antiquated school where the spirit of the child is fettered and
crushed. Nowhere in the world are labour organizations as subservient to
the will and the dictates of the State as they are in Bolshevik Russia.
The fate of the coöperatives is too well known to require elucidation.
The coöperatives were the most essential link between the city and the
country. Their value to the Revolution as a popular and successful
medium of exchange and distribution and to the reconstruction of Russia
was incalculable. The Bolsheviki transformed them into cogs of the
Government machine and thereby destroyed their usefulness and
efficiency.
III
It is now clear why the Russian Revolution, as conducted by the
Communist Party, was a failure. The political power of the Party,
organized and centralized in the State, sought to maintain itself by all
means at hand. The central authorities attempted to force the activities
of the people into forms corresponding with the purposes of the Party.
The sole aim of the latter was to strengthen the State and monopolize
all economical, political, and social activities--even all cultural
manifestations. The Revolution had an entirely different object, and in
its very character it was the negation of authority and centralization.
It strove to open ever-larger fields for proletarian expression and to
multiply the phases of individual and collective effort. The aims and
tendencies of the Revolution were diametrically opposed to those of the
ruling political party.
Just as diametrically opposed were the _methods_ of the Revolution and
of the State. Those of the former were inspired by the spirit of the
Revolution itself: that is to say, by emancipation from all oppressive
and limiting forces; in short, _by libertarian principles_. The methods
of the State, on the contrary--of the Bolshevik State as of every
government--were based on _coercion_, which in the course of things
necessarily developed into systematic violence, oppression, and
terrorism. Thus two opposing tendencies struggled for supremacy: the
Bolshevik State against the Revolution. That struggle was a
life-and-death struggle. The two tendencies, contradictory in aims and
methods, could not work harmoniously: the triumph of the State meant the
defeat of the Revolution.
It would be an error to assume that the failure of the Revolution was
due entirely to the character of the Bolsheviki. Fundamentally, it was
the result of the principles and methods of Bolshevism. It was the
authoritarian spirit and principles of the State which stifled the
libertarian and liberating aspirations. Were any other political party
in control of the government in Russia the result would have been
essentially the same. It is not so much the Bolsheviki who killed the
Russian Revolution as the Bolshevik idea. It was Marxism, however
modified; in short, fanatical governmentalism. Only this understanding
of the underlying forces that crushed the Revolution can present the
true lesson of that world-stirring event. The Russian Revolution
reflects on a small scale the century-old struggle of the libertarian
principle against the authoritarian. For what is progress if not the
more general acceptance of the principles of liberty as against those of
coercion? The Russian Revolution was a libertarian step defeated by the
Bolshevik State, by the temporary victory of the reactionary, the
governmental idea.
That victory was due to a number of causes. Most of them have already
been dealt with in the preceding chapters. The main cause, however, was
not the industrial backwardness of Russia, as claimed by many writers on
the subject. That cause was cultural which, though giving the Russian
people certain advantages over their more sophisticated neighbours, also
had some fatal disadvantages. The Russian was “culturally backward” in
the sense of being unspoiled by political and parliamentary corruption.
On the other hand, that very condition involved inexperience in the
political game and a naïve faith in the miraculous power of the party
that talked the loudest and made the most promises. This faith in the
power of government served to enslave the Russian people to the
Communist Party even before the great masses realized that the yoke had
been put around their necks.
The libertarian principle was strong in the initial days of the
Revolution, the need for free expression all-absorbing. But when the
first wave of enthusiasm receded into the ebb of everyday prosaic life,
a firm conviction was needed to keep the fires of liberty burning. There
was only a comparative handful in the great vastness of Russia to keep
those fires lit--the Anarchists, whose number was small and whose
efforts, absolutely suppressed under the Tsar, had had no time to bear
fruit. The Russian people, to some extent instinctive Anarchists, were
yet too unfamiliar with true libertarian principles and methods to apply
them effectively to life. Most of the Russian Anarchists themselves were
unfortunately still in the meshes of limited group activities and of
individualistic endeavour as against the more important social and
collective efforts. The Anarchists, the future unbiased historian will
admit, have played a very important rôle in the Russian Revolution--a
rôle far more significant and fruitful than their comparatively small
number would have led one to expect. Yet honesty and sincerity compel me
to state that their work would have been of infinitely greater practical
value had they been better organized and equipped to guide the released
energies of the people toward the reorganization of life on a
libertarian foundation.
But the failure of the Anarchists in the Russian Revolution--in the
sense just indicated--does by no means argue the defeat of the
libertarian idea. On the contrary, the Russian Revolution has
demonstrated beyond doubt that the State idea, State Socialism, in all
its manifestations (economic, political, social, educational) is
entirely and hopelessly bankrupt. Never before in all history has
authority, government, the State, proved so inherently static,
reactionary, and even counter-revolutionary in effect. In short, the
very antithesis of revolution.
It remains true, as it has through all progress, that only the
libertarian spirit and method can bring man a step further in his
eternal striving for the better, finer, and freer life. Applied to the
great social upheavals known as revolutions, this tendency is as potent
as in the ordinary evolutionary process. The authoritarian method has
been a failure all through history and now it has again failed in the
Russian Revolution. So far human ingenuity has discovered no other
principle except the libertarian, for man has indeed uttered the highest
wisdom when he said that liberty is the mother of order, not its
daughter. All political tenets and parties notwithstanding, no
revolution can be truly and permanently successful unless it puts its
emphatic veto upon all tyranny and centralization, and determinedly
strives to make the revolution a real revaluation of all economic,
social, and cultural values. Not mere substitution of one political
party for another in the control of the Government, not the masking of
autocracy by proletarian slogans, not the dictatorship of a new class
over an old one, not political scene shifting of any kind, but the
complete reversal of all these authoritarian principles will alone serve
the revolution.
In the economic field this transformation must be in the hands of the
industrial masses: the latter have the choice between an industrial
State and anarcho-syndicalism. In the case of the former the menace to
the constructive development of the new social structure would be as
great as from the political State. It would become a dead weight upon
the growth of the new forms of life. For that very reason syndicalism
(or industrialism) alone is not, as its exponents claim, sufficient unto
itself. It is only when the libertarian spirit permeates the economic
organizations of the workers that the manifold creative energies of the
people can manifest themselves, and the revolution be safeguarded and
defended. Only free initiative and popular participation in the affairs
of the revolution can prevent the terrible blunders committed in Russia.
For instance, with fuel only a hundred versts [about sixty-six miles]
from Petrograd there would have been no necessity for that city to
suffer from cold had the workers’ economic organizations of Petrograd
been free to exercise their initiative for the common good. The peasants
of the Ukraina would not have been hampered in the cultivation of their
land had they had access to the farm implements stacked up in the
warehouses of Kharkov and other industrial centres awaiting orders from
Moscow for their distribution. These are characteristic examples of
Bolshevik governmentalism and centralization, which should serve as a
warning to the workers of Europe and America of the destructive effects
of Statism.
The industrial power of the masses, expressed through their libertarian
associations--Anarcho-syndicalism--is alone able to organize
successfully the economic life and carry on production. On the other
hand, the coöperatives, working in harmony with the industrial bodies,
serve as the distributing and exchange media between city and country,
and at the same time link in fraternal bond the industrial and agrarian
masses. A common tie of mutual service and aid is created which is the
strongest bulwark of the revolution--far more effective then compulsory
labour, the Red Army, or terrorism. In that way alone can revolution act
as a leaven to quicken the development of new social forms and inspire
the masses to greater achievements.
But libertarian industrial organizations and the coöperatives are not
the only media in the interplay of the complex phases of social life.
There are the cultural forces which, though closely related to the
economic activities, have yet their own functions to perform. In Russia
the Communist State became the sole arbiter of all the needs of the
social body. The result, as already described, was complete cultural
stagnation and the paralysis of all creative endeavour. If such a
débâcle is to be avoided in the future, the cultural forces, while
remaining rooted in the economic soil, must yet retain independent scope
and freedom of expression. Not adherence to the dominant political party
but devotion to the revolution, knowledge, ability, and--above all--the
creative impulse should be the criterion of fitness for cultural work.
In Russia this was made impossible almost from the beginning of the
October Revolution, by the violent separation of the intelligentsia and
the masses. It is true that the original offender in this case was the
intelligentsia, especially the technical intelligentsia, which in Russia
tenaciously clung--as it does in other countries--to the coat-tails of
the bourgeoisie. This element, unable to comprehend the significance of
revolutionary events, strove to stem the tide by wholesale sabotage. But
in Russia there was also another kind of intelligentsia--one with a
glorious revolutionary past of a hundred years. That part of the
intelligentsia kept faith with the people, though it could not
unreservedly accept the new dictatorship. The fatal error of the
Bolsheviki was that they made no distinction between the two elements.
They met sabotage with wholesale terror against the intelligentsia as a
class, and inaugurated a campaign of hatred more intensive than the
persecution of the bourgeoisie itself--a method which created an abyss
between the intelligentsia and the proletariat and reared a barrier
against constructive work.
Lenin was the first to realize that criminal blunder. He pointed out
that it was a grave error to lead the workers to believe that they could
build up the industries and engage in cultural work without the aid and
coöperation of the intelligentsia. The proletariat had neither the
knowledge nor the training for the task, and the intelligentsia had to
be restored in the direction of the industrial life. But the recognition
of one error never safeguarded Lenin and his Party from immediately
committing another. The technical intelligentsia was called back on
terms which added disintegration to the antagonism against the régime.
While the workers continued to starve, engineers, industrial experts,
and technicians received high salaries, special privileges, and the best
rations. They became the pampered employees of the State and the new
slave drivers of the masses. The latter, fed for years on the fallacious
teachings that muscle alone is necessary for a successful revolution
and that only physical labour is productive, and incited by the campaign
of hatred which stamped every intellectual a counter-revolutionist and
speculator, could not make peace with those they had been taught to
scorn and distrust.
Unfortunately Russia is not the only country where this proletarian
attitude against the intelligentsia prevails. Everywhere political
demagogues play upon the ignorance of the masses, teach them that
education and culture are bourgeois prejudices, that the workers can do
without them, and that they alone are able to rebuild society. The
Russian Revolution has made it very clear that both brain and muscle are
indispensable to the work of social regeneration. Intellectual and
physical labour are as closely related in the social body as brain and
hand in the human organism. One cannot function without the other.
It is true that most intellectuals consider themselves a class apart
from and superior to the workers, but social conditions everywhere are
fast demolishing the high pedestal of the intelligentsia. They are made
to see that they, too, are proletarians, even more dependent upon the
economic master than the manual worker. Unlike the physical
proletarian, who can pick up his tools and tramp the world in search of
a change from a galling situation, the intellectual proletarians have
their roots more firmly in their particular social environment and
cannot so easily change their occupation or mode of living. It is
therefore of utmost importance to bring home to the workers the rapid
proletarization of the intellectuals and the common tie thus created
between them. If the Western world is to profit by the lessons of
Russia, the demagogic flattery of the masses and blind antagonism toward
the intelligentsia must cease. That does not mean, however, that the
toilers should depend entirely upon the intellectual element. On the
contrary, the masses must begin right now to prepare and equip
themselves for the great task the revolution will put upon them. They
should acquire the knowledge and technical skill necessary for managing
and directing the intricate mechanism of the industrial and social
structure of their respective countries. But even at best the workers
will need the coöperation of the professional and cultural elements.
Similarly the latter must realize that their true interests are
identical with those of the masses. Once the two social forces learn to
blend into one harmonious whole, the tragic aspects of the Russian
Revolution would to a great extent be eliminated. No one would be shot
because he “once acquired an education.” The scientist, the engineer,
the specialist, the investigator, the educator, and the creative artist,
as well as the carpenter, machinist, and the rest, are all part and
parcel of the collective force which is to shape the revolution into the
great architect of the new social edifice. Not hatred, but unity; not
antagonism, but fellowship; not shooting, but sympathy--that is the
lesson of the great Russian débâcle for the intelligentsia as well as
the workers. All must learn the value of mutual aid and libertarian
coöperation. Yet each must be able to remain independent in his own
sphere and in harmony with the best he can yield to society. Only in
that way will productive labour and educational and cultural endeavour
express themselves in ever newer and richer forms. That is to me the
all-embracing and vital moral taught by the Russian Revolution.
IV
In the previous pages I have tried to point out why Bolshevik
principles, methods, and tactics failed, and that similar principles
and methods applied in any other country, even of the highest
industrial development, must also fail. I have further shown that it is
not only Bolshevism that failed, but Marxism itself. That is to say, the
STATE IDEA, the _authoritarian principle_, has been proven bankrupt by
the experience of the Russian Revolution. If I were to sum up my whole
argument in one sentence I should say: The inherent tendency of the
State is to concentrate, to narrow, and monopolize all social
activities; the nature of revolution is, on the contrary, to grow, to
broaden, and disseminate itself in ever-wider circles. In other words,
the State is institutional and static; revolution is fluent, dynamic.
These two tendencies are incompatible and mutually destructive. The
State idea killed the Russian Revolution and it must have the same
result in all other revolutions, unless the _libertarian idea prevail_.
Yet I go much further. It is not only Bolshevism, Marxism, and
Governmentalism which are fatal to revolution as well as to all vital
human progress. The main cause of the defeat of the Russian Revolution
lies much deeper. It is to be found in the whole Socialist conception of
revolution itself.
The dominant, almost general, idea of revolution--particularly the
Socialist idea--is that revolution is a violent change of social
conditions through which one social class, the working class, becomes
dominant over another class, the capitalist class. It is the conception
of a purely physical change, and as such it involves only political
scene shifting and institutional rearrangements. Bourgeois dictatorship
is replaced by the “dictatorship of the proletariat”--or by that of its
“advance guard,” the Communist Party; Lenin takes the seat of the
Romanovs, the Imperial Cabinet is rechristened Soviet of People’s
Commissars, Trotsky is appointed Minister of War, and a labourer becomes
the Military Governor General of Moscow. That is, in essence, the
Bolshevik conception of revolution, as translated into actual practice.
And with a few minor alterations it is also the idea of revolution held
by all other Socialist parties.
This conception is inherently and fatally false. Revolution is indeed a
violent process. But if it is to result only in a change of
dictatorship, in a shifting of names and political personalities, then
it is hardly worth while. It is surely not worth all the struggle and
sacrifice, the stupendous loss in human life and cultural values that
result from every revolution. If such a revolution were even to bring
greater social well being (which has not been the case in Russia) then
it would also not be worth the terrific price paid: mere improvement can
be brought about without bloody revolution. It is not palliatives or
reforms that are the real aim and purpose of revolution, as I conceive
it.
In my opinion--a thousandfold strengthened by the Russian
experience--the great mission of revolution, of the SOCIAL REVOLUTION,
is a _fundamental transvaluation of values_. A transvaluation not only
of social, but also of human values. The latter are even preëminent, for
they are the basis of all social values. Our institutions and conditions
rest upon deep-seated ideas. To change those conditions and at the same
time leave the underlying ideas and values intact means only a
superficial transformation, one that cannot be permanent or bring real
betterment. It is a change of form only, not of substance, as so
tragically proven by Russia.
It is at once the great failure and the great tragedy of the Russian
Revolution that it attempted (in the leadership of the ruling political
party) to change only institutions and conditions while ignoring
entirely the human and social values involved in the Revolution. Worse
yet, in its mad passion for power, the Communist State even sought to
strengthen and deepen the very ideas and conceptions which the
Revolution had come to destroy. It supported and encouraged all the
worst anti-social qualities and systematically destroyed the already
awakened conception of the new revolutionary values. The sense
of justice and equality, the love of liberty and of human
brotherhood--these fundamentals of the real regeneration of society--the
Communist State suppressed to the point of extermination. Man’s
instinctive sense of equity was branded as weak sentimentality; human
dignity and liberty became a bourgeois superstition; the sanctity of
life, which is the very essence of social reconstruction, was condemned
as un-revolutionary, almost counter-revolutionary. This fearful
perversion of fundamental values bore within itself the seed of
destruction. With the conception that the Revolution was only a means of
securing political power, it was inevitable that all revolutionary
values should be subordinated to the needs of the Socialist State;
indeed, exploited to further the security of the newly acquired
governmental power. “Reasons of State,” masked as the “interests of the
Revolution and of the People,” became the sole criterion of action,
even of feeling. Violence, the tragic inevitability of revolutionary
upheavals, became an established custom, a habit, and was presently
enthroned as the most powerful and “ideal” institution. Did not Zinoviev
himself canonize Dzerzhinsky, the head of the bloody Tcheka, as the
“saint of the Revolution”? Were not the greatest public honours paid by
the State to Uritsky, the founder and sadistic chief of the Petrograd
Tcheka?
This perversion of the ethical values soon crystallized into the
all-dominating slogan of the Communist Party: THE END JUSTIFIES ALL
MEANS. Similarly in the past the Inquisition and the Jesuits adopted
this motto and subordinated to it all morality. It avenged itself upon
the Jesuits as it did upon the Russian Revolution. In the wake of this
slogan followed lying, deceit, hypocrisy and treachery, murder, open and
secret. It should be of utmost interest to students of social psychology
that two movements as widely separated in time and ideas as Jesuitism
and Bolshevism _reached exactly similar results_ in the evolution of the
principle that the end justifies all means. The historic parallel,
almost entirely ignored so far, contains a most important lesson for all
coming revolutions and for the whole future of mankind.
There is no greater fallacy than the belief that aims and purposes are
one thing, while methods and tactics are another. This conception is a
potent menace to social regeneration. All human experience teaches that
methods and means cannot be separated from the ultimate aim. The means
employed become, through individual habit and social practice, part and
parcel of the final purpose; they influence it, modify it, and presently
the aims and means become identical. From the day of my arrival in
Russia I felt it, at first vaguely, then ever more consciously and
clearly. The great and inspiring aims of the Revolution became so
clouded with and obscured by the methods used by the ruling political
power that it was hard to distinguish what was temporary means and what
final purpose. Psychologically and socially the means necessarily
influence and alter the aims. The whole history of man is continuous
proof of the maxim that to divest one’s methods of ethical concepts
means to sink into the depths of utter demoralization. In that lies the
real tragedy of the Bolshevik philosophy as applied to the Russian
Revolution. May this lesson not be in vain.
No revolution can ever succeed as a factor of liberation unless the
MEANS used to further it be identical in spirit and tendency with the
PURPOSES to be achieved. Revolution is the negation of the existing, a
violent protest against man’s inhumanity to man with all the thousand
and one slaveries it involves. It is the destroyer of dominant values
upon which a complex system of injustice, oppression, and wrong has been
built up by ignorance and brutality. It is the herald of NEW VALUES,
ushering in a transformation of the basic relations of man to man, and
of man to society. It is not a mere reformer, patching up some social
evils; not a mere changer of forms and institutions; not only a
re-distributor of social well-being. It is all that, yet more, much
more. It is, first and foremost, the TRANSVALUATOR, the bearer of _new_
values. It is the great TEACHER of the NEW ETHICS, inspiring man with a
new concept of life and its manifestations in social relationships. It
is the mental and spiritual regenerator.
Its first ethical precept is the identity of means used and aims sought.
The ultimate end of all revolutionary social change is to establish the
sanctity of human life, the dignity of man, the right of every human
being to liberty and well-being. Unless this be the essential aim of
revolution, violent social changes would have no justification. For
_external_ social alterations can be, and have been, accomplished by the
normal processes of evolution. Revolution, on the contrary, signifies
not mere _external_ change, but _internal_, basic, fundamental change.
That internal change of concepts and ideas, permeating ever-larger
social strata, finally culminates in the violent upheaval known as
revolution. Shall that climax reverse the process of transvaluation,
turn against it, betray it? That is what happened in Russia. On the
contrary, the revolution itself must quicken and further the process of
which it is the cumulative expression; its main mission is to inspire
it, to carry it to greater heights, give it fullest scope for
expression. Only thus is revolution true to itself.
Applied in practice it means that the period of the actual revolution,
the so-called transitory stage, must be the introduction, the prelude to
the new social conditions. It is the threshold to the NEW LIFE, the new
HOUSE OF MAN AND HUMANITY. As such it must be of the spirit of the new
life, harmonious with the construction of the new edifice.
To-day is the parent of to-morrow. The present casts its shadow far into
the future. That is the law of life, individual and social. Revolution
that divests itself of ethical values thereby lays the foundation of
injustice, deceit, and oppression for the future society. The _means_
used to _prepare_ the future become its _cornerstone_. Witness the
tragic condition of Russia. The methods of State centralization have
paralysed individual initiative and effort; the tyranny of the
dictatorship has cowed the people into slavish submission and all but
extinguished the fires of liberty; organized terrorism has depraved and
brutalized the masses and stifled every idealistic aspiration;
institutionalized murder has cheapened human life, and all sense of the
dignity of man and the value of life has been eliminated; coercion at
every step has made effort bitter, labour a punishment, has turned the
whole of existence into a scheme of mutual deceit, and has revived the
lowest and most brutal instincts of man. A sorry heritage to begin a new
life of freedom and brotherhood.
It cannot be sufficiently emphasized that revolution is in vain unless
inspired by its ultimate ideal. Revolutionary methods must be in tune
with revolutionary aims. The means used to further the revolution must
harmonize with its purposes. In short, the ethical values which the
revolution is to establish in the new society must be _initiated_ with
the revolutionary activities of the so-called transitional period. The
latter can serve as a real and dependable bridge to the better life only
if built of the same material as the life to be achieved. Revolution is
the mirror of the coming day; it is the child that is to be the Man of
To-morrow.
THE END
FOOTNOTES:
[A] Political bureaus.
[B] Armed units organized by the Bolsheviki for the purpose of
suppressing traffic and confiscating foodstuffs.
[C] Individual small-scale.
[D] Happy villagers and their model homes, specially prepared and shown
to Catherine the Great by her Prime Minister Potemkin to deceive her
about the true condition of the peasantry.
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