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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This Etext prepared by Joseph Gallanar +Gallanar@microserve.net + + + + + +RUSSIA IN 1919 +BY ARTHUR RANSOME + + + + +PUBLISHER'S NOTE + + + +On August 27, 1914, in London, I made this note in a +memorandum book: "Met Arthur Ransome at_____'s; +discussed a book on the Russian's relation to the war in the +light of psychological background--folklore." The book was +not written but the idea that instinctively came to him +pervades his every utterance on things Russian. + + +The versatile man who commands more than respect as the +biographer of Poe and Wilde; as the (translator of and +commentator on Remy de Gourmont; as a folklorist, has +shown himself to be consecrated to the truth. The document +that Mr. Ransome hurried out of Russia in the early days of +the Soviet government (printed in the New Republic and +then widely circulated as a pamphlet), was the first notable +appeal from a non-Russian to the American people for fair +play in a crisis understood then even less than now. + + +The British Who's Who--that Almanach de Gotha of +people who do things or choose their parents wisely--tells us +that Mr. Ransome's recreations are "walking, smoking, fairy +stories." It is, perhaps, his intimacy with the last named that +enables him to distinguish between myth and fact and that +makes his activity as an observer and recorder so valuable in +a day of bewilderment and betrayal. + +B. W. H. + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + + +I am well aware that there is material in this book which will +be misused by fools both white and red. That is not my +fault. My object has been narrowly limited. I have tried by +means of a bald record of conversations and things seen, to +provide material for those who wish to know what is being +done and thought in Moscow at the present time, and +demand something more to go upon than secondhand +reports of wholly irrelevant atrocities committed by either +one side or the other, and often by neither one side nor the +other, but by irresponsible scoundrels who, in the natural +turmoil of the greatest convulsion in the history of our +civilization, escape temporarily here and there from any kind +of control. + + +The book is in no sense of the word propaganda. For +propaganda, for the defence or attack of the Communist +position, is needed a knowledge of economics, both from the +capitalist and socialist standpoints, to which I cannot +pretend. Very many times during the revolution it has +seemed to me a tragedy that no Englishman properly +equipped in this way was in Russia studying the gigantic +experiment which, as a country, we are allowing to pass +abused but not examined. I did my best. I got, I think I may +say, as near as any foreigner who was not a Communist +could get to what was going on. But I never lost the bitter +feeling that the opportunities of study which I made for +myself were wasted, because I could not hand them on to +some other Englishman, whose education and training would +have enabled him to make a better, a fuller use of them. +Nor would it have been difficult for such a man to get the +opportunities which were given to me when, by sheer +persistence in enquiry, I had overcome the hostility which I +at first encountered as the correspondent of a "bourgeois" +newspaper. Such a man could be in Russia now, for the +Communists do not regard war as we regard it. The +Germans would hardly have allowed an Allied Commission +to come to Berlin a year ago to investigate the nature and +working of the Autocracy. The Russians, on the other hand, +immediatelya greed to the suggestion of the Berne +Conference that they should admit a party of socialists, the +majority of whom, as they well knew, had already expressed +condemnation of them. Further, in agreeing to this, they +added that they would as willingly admit a committee of +enquiry sent by any of the "bourgeois" governments actually +at war with them. + + +I am sure that there will be many in England who will +understand much better than I the drudgery of the revolution +which is in this book very imperfectly suggested. I repeat +that it is not my fault that they must make do with the eyes +and ears of an ignorant observer. No doubt I have not asked +the questions they would have asked, and have thought +interesting and novel much which they would have taken for +granted. + + +The book has no particular form, other than that given it by +a more or less accurate adherence to chronology in setting +down things seen and heard. It is far too incomplete to +allow me to call it a Journal. I think I could have made it +twice as long without repetitions, and I am not at all sure that +in choosing in a hurry between this and that I did not +omit much which could with advantage be substituted for +what is here set down. There is nothing here of my talk with +the English soldier prisoners and nothing of my visit to the +officers confined in the Butyrka Gaol. There is nothing of +the plagues of typhus and influenza, or of the desperate +situation of a people thus visited and unable to procure from +abroad the simplest drugs which they cannot manufacture at +home or even the anaesthetics necessary for their wounded +on every frontier of their country. I forgot to describe the +ballet which I saw a few days before leaving. I have said +nothing of the talk I had with Eliava concerning the Russian +plans for the future of Turkestan. I could think of a score of +other omissions. Judging from what I have read since my +return from Russia, I imagine people will find my book very +poor in the matter of Terrors. There is nothing here of the +Red Terror, or of any of the Terrors on the other side. But +for its poverty in atrocities my book will be blamed only by +fanatics, since they alone desire proofs of past Terrors as +justification for new ones. + + +On reading my manuscript through, I find it quite +surprisingly dull. The one thing that I should have liked to +transmit through it seems somehow to have slipped away. I +should have liked to explain what was the appeal of the +revolution to men like Colonel Robins and myself, both of +us men far removed in origin and upbringing from the +revolutionary and socialist movements in our own countries. +Of course no one who was able, as we were able, to watch +the men of the revolution at close quarters could believe for +a moment that they were the mere paid agents of the very +power which more than all others represented the stronghold +they had set out to destroy. We had the knowledge of the +injustice being done to these men to urge us in their defence. +But there was more in it than that. There was the feeling, +from which we could never escape, of the creative effort of +the revolution. There was the thing that distinguishes the +creative from other artists, the living, vivifying expression of +something hitherto hidden in the consciousness of humanity. +If this book were to be an accurate record of my own +impressions, all the drudgery, gossip, quarrels, arguments, +events and experiences it contains would have to be set +against a background of that extraordinary vitality which +obstinately persists in Moscow even in these dark days of +discomfort, disillusion, pestilence, starvation and unwanted +war. + + +ARTHUR RANSOME. + + + + + +CONTENTS + + + +To Petrograd +Smolni +Petrograd to Moscow +First Days in Moscow +The Executive Committee on the Reply to the Prinkipo Proposal +Kamenev and the Moscow Soviet +An Ex--Capitalist +A Theorist of Revolution +Effects of Isolation +An Evening at the Opera +The Committee of State Constructions +The Executive Committee and the Terror +Notes of Conversations with Lenin +The Supreme Council of Public Economy +The Race with Ruin +A Play of Chekhov +The Centro--Textile +Modification in the Agrarian Programme +Foreign Trade and Munitions of War +The Proposed Delegation from Berne +The Executive Committee on the Rival Parties +Commissariat of Labour +Education +A Bolshevik Fellow of the Royal Society +Digression +The Opposition +The Third International +Last Talk with Lenin +The Journey Out + + + + +RUSSIA IN 1919 + + +TO PETROGRAD + + + +On January 30 a party of four newspaper correspondents, +two Norwegians, a Swede and myself, left Stockholm to go +into Russia. We travelled with the members of the Soviet +Government's Legation, headed by Vorovsky and Litvinov, +who were going home after the breaking off of official +relations by Sweden. Some months earlier I had got leave +from the Bolsheviks to go into Russia to get further material +for my history of the revolution, but at the last moment there +was opposition and it seemed likely that I should be refused +permission. Fortunately, however, a copy of the Morning +Post reached Stockholm, containing a report of a lecture by +Mr. Lockhart in which he had said that as I had been out of +Russia for six months I had no right to speak of conditions +there. Armed with this I argued that it would be very +unfair if I were not allowed to come and see things for +myself. I had no further difficulties. + + +We crossed by boat to Abo, grinding our way through the +ice, and then travelled by rail to the Russian frontier, taking +several days over the journey owing to delays variously +explained by the Finnish authorities. We were told that the +Russian White Guards had planned an attack on the train. +Litvinov, half-smiling, wondered if they were purposely giving time +to the White Guards to organize such an attack. Several +nervous folk inclined to that opinion. But at Viborg we +were told that there were grave disorders in Petrograd and +that the Finns did not wish to fling us into the middle of a +scrimmage. Then someone obtained a newspaper and we +read a detailed account of what was happening. This +account was, as I learnt on my return, duly telegraphed to +England like much other news of a similar character. There +had been a serious revolt in Petrograd. The Semenovsky +regiment had gone over to the mutineers, who had seized the +town. The Government, however, had escaped to +Kronstadt, whence they were bombarding Petrograd with +naval guns. + + +This sounded fairly lively, but there was nothing to be done, +so we finished up the chess tournament we had begun on the +boat. An Esthonian won it, and I was second, by reason of +a lucky win over Litvinov, who is really a better player. By +Sunday night we reached Terijoki and on Monday moved +slowly to the frontier of Finland close to Bieloostrov. A +squad of Finnish soldiers was waiting, excluding everybody +from the station and seeing that no dangerous revolutionary +should break away on Finnish territory. There were no +horses, but three hand sledges were brought, and we piled +the luggage on them, and then set off to walk to the frontier +duly convoyed by the Finns. A Finnish lieutenant walked at +the head of the procession, chatting good-humouredly in +Swedish and German, much as a man might think it worth +while to be kind to a crowd of unfortunates just about to be +flung into a boiling cauldron. We walked a few hundred +yards along the line and then turned into a road deep in +snow through a little bare wood, and so down to the little +wooden bridge over the narrow frozen stream that +separates Finland from Russia. The bridge, not twenty yards +across, has a toll bar at each end, two sentry boxes and two +sentries. On the Russian side the bar was the familiar black +and white of the old Russian Empire, with a sentry box to +match. The Finns seemingly had not yet had time to paint +their bar and box. + + +The Finns lifted their toll bar, and the Finnish officers +leading our escort walked solemnly to the middle of the +bridge. Then the luggage was dumped there, while we stood +watching the trembling of the rickety little bridge under the +weight of our belongings, for we were all taking in with us as +much food as we decently could. We were none of us +allowed on the bridge until an officer and a few men had +come down to meet us on the Russian side. Only little Nina, +Vorovskv's daughter, about ten years old, chattering +Swedish with the Finns, got leave from them, and shyly, step +by step, went down the other side of the bridge and struck +up acquaintance with the soldier of the Red Army who stood +there, gun in hand, and obligingly bent to show her +the sign, set in his hat, of the crossed sickle and hammer +of the Peasants' and Workmen's Republic. At last the +Finnish lieutenant took the list of his prisoners and called out +the names "Vorovsky, wife and one bairn," looking +laughingly over his shoulder at Nina flirting with the sentry. +Then "Litvinov," and so on through all the Russians, about +thirty of them. We four visitors, Grimlund the Swede, +Puntervald and Stang, the Norwegians, and I, came last. At +last, after a general shout of farewell, and "Helse Finland" +from Nina, the Finns turned and went back into their +civilization, and we went forward into the new struggling +civilization of Russia. Crossing that bridge we passed from +one philosophy to another, from one extreme of the class +struggle to the other, from a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie +to a dictatorship of the proletariat. + + +The contrast was noticeable at once. On the Finnish side of +the frontier we had seen the grandiose new frontier station, +much larger than could possibly be needed, but quite a good +expression of the spirit of the new Finland. On the Russian +side we came to the same grey old wooden station known +to all passengers to and from Russia for polyglot profanity +and passport difficulties. There were no porters, which was +not surprising because there is barbed wire and an extremely +hostile sort of neutrality along the frontier and traffic across +has practically ceased. In the buffet, which was very cold, +no food could be bought. The long tables once laden with +caviare and other zakuski were bare. There was, however, a +samovar, and we bought tea at sixty kopecks a glass and +lumps of sugar at two roubles fifty each. We took our tea +into the inner passport room, where I think a stove must +have been burning the day before, and there made some sort +of a meal off some of Puntervald's Swedish hard-bread. It +is difficult to me to express the curious mixture of +depression and exhilaration that was given to the party by +this derelict starving station combined with the feeling that +we were no longer under guard but could do more or less as +we liked. It split the party into two factions, of which one +wept while the other sang. Madame Vorovsky, who had not +been in Russia since the first revolution, frankly wept, but +she wept still more in Moscow where she found that even +as the wife of a high official of the Government she enjoyed +no privileges which would save her from the hardships of +the population. But the younger members of the party, +together with Litvinov, found their spirits irrepressibly rising +in spite of having no dinner. They walked about the village, +played with the children, and sang, not revolutionary songs, +but just jolly songs, any songs that came into their heads. +When at last the train came to take us into Petrograd, and we +found that the carriages were unheated, somebody got out a +mandoline and we kept ourselves warm by dancing. At the +same time I was sorry for the five children who were with +us, knowing that a country simultaneously suffering war, +blockade and revolution is not a good place for childhood. +But they had caught the mood of their parents, +revolutionaries going home to their revolution, and trotted +excitedly up and down the carriage or anchored themselves +momentarily, first on one person's knee and then on +another's. + + +It was dusk when we reached Petrograd. The Finland +Station, of course, was nearly deserted, but here there +were four porters, who charged two hundred and fifty +roubles for shifting the luggage of the party from one end of +the platform to the other. We ourselves loaded it into the +motor lorry sent to meet us, as at Bieloostrov we had loaded +it into the van. There was a long time to wait while rooms +were being allotted to us in various hotels, and with several +others I walked outside the station to question people about +the mutiny and the bombardment of which we had heard in +Finland. Nobody knew anything about it. As soon as the +rooms were allotted and I knew that I had been lucky +enough to get one in the Astoria, I drove off across the +frozen river by the Liteini Bridge. The trams were running. +The town seemed absolutely quiet, and away down the river +I saw once again in the dark, which is never quite dark +because of the snow, the dim shape of the fortress, and +passed one by one the landmarks I had come to know so +well during the last six years-the Summer Garden, the +British Embassy, and the great Palace Square where I had +seen armoured cars flaunting about during the July rising, +soldiers camping during the hysterical days of the +Kornilov affair and, earlier, Kornilov himself reviewing the +Junkers. My mind went further back to the March +revolution, and saw once more the picket fire of the +revolutionaries at the corner that night when the remains of +the Tzar's Government were still frantically printing +proclamations ordering the people to go home, at the very +moment while they themselves were being besieged in the +Admiralty. Then it flung itself further back still, to the day +of the declaration of war, when I saw this same square filled +with people, while the Tzar came out for a moment on the +Palace balcony. By that time we were pulling up at the +Astoria and I had to turn my mind to something else. + + +The Astoria is now a bare barrack of a place, but +comparatively clean. During the war and the first part of the +revolution it was tenanted chiefly by officers, and owing to +the idiocy of a few of these at the time of the first revolution +in shooting at a perfectly friendly crowd of soldiers and +sailors, who came there at first with no other object than to +invite the officers to join them, the place was badly smashed +up in the resulting scrimmage. I remember with Major +Scale fixing up a paper announcing the fall of Bagdad either +the night this happened or perhaps the night before. People +rushed up to it, thinking it some news about the revolution, +and turned impatiently away. All the damage has been +repaired, but the red carpets have gone, perhaps to make +banners, and many of the electric lights were not burning, +probably because of the shortage in electricity. I got my +luggage upstairs to a very pleasant room on the fourth floor. +Every floor of that hotel had its memories for me. In this +room lived that brave reactionary officer who boasted that +he had made a raid on the Bolsheviks and showed little +Madame Kollontai's hat as a trophy. In this I used to listen +to Perceval Gibbon when he was talking about how to write +short stories and having influenza. There was the room +where Miss Beatty used to give tea to tired revolutionaries +and to still more tired enquirers into the nature of revolution +while she wrote the only book that has so far appeared +which gives anything like a true impresionist picture of those +unforgettable days.* [(*)"The Red Heart of Russia."] Close +by was the room where poor Denis Garstin used to talk +of the hunting he would have when the war should come to +an end. + + +I enquired for a meal, and found that no food was to be had +in the hotel, but they could supply hot water. Then, to get +an appetite for sleep, I went out for a short walk, though I +did not much like doing so with nothing but an English +passport, and with no papers to show that I had any right to +be there. I had, like the other foreigners, been promised +such papers but had not yet received them. I went round to +the Regina, which used to be one of the best hotels in the +town, but those of us who had rooms there were +complaining so bitterly that I did not stay with them, but +went off along the Moika to the Nevsky and so back to my +own hotel. The streets, like the hotel, were only half lit, and +hardly any of the houses had a lighted window. In the old +sheepskin coat I had worn on the front and in my high fur +hat, I felt like some ghost of the old regime visiting a town +long dead. The silence and emptiness of the streets +contributed to this effect. Still, the few people I met or +passed were talking cheerfully together and the rare +sledges and motors had comparatively good roads, the +streets being certainly better swept and cleaned than they +have been since the last winter of the Russian Empire. + + + + + +SMOLNI + + + +Early in the morning I got tea, and a bread card on which I +was given a very small allowance of brown bread, noticeably +better in quality than the compound of clay and straw which +made me ill in Moscow last summer. Then I went to find +Litvinov, and set out with him to walk to the Smolni +institute, once a school for the daughters of the aristocracy, +then the headquarters of the Soviet, then the headquarters of +the Soviet Government, and finally, after the Government's +evacuation to Moscow, bequeathed to the Northern +Commune and the Petrograd Soviet. The town, in daylight, +seemed less deserted, though it was obvious that the +"unloading" of the Petrograd population, which was +unsuccessfully attempted during the Kerensky regime, had +been accomplished to a large extent. This has been partly +the result of famine and of the stoppage of factories, +which in its turn is due to the impossibility of bringing fuel +and raw material to Petrograd. A very large proportion of +Russian factory hands have not, as in other countries, lost +their connection with their native villages. There was always +a considerable annual migration backwards and forwards +between the villages and the town, and great numbers of +workmen have gone home, carrying with them the ideas of +the revolution. It should also be remembered that the bulk +of the earlier formed units of the Red Army is composed of +workmen from the towns who, except in the case of +peasants mobilized in districts which have experienced an +occupation by the counter-revolutionaries, are more +determined and better understand the need for discipline +than the men from the country. + + +The most noticeable thing in Petrograd to anyone returning +after six months' absence is the complete disappearance of +armed men. The town seems to have returned to a perfectly +peaceable condition in the sense that the need for +revolutionary patrols has gone. Soldiers walking about no +longer carry their rifles, and the picturesque figures of +the revolution who wore belts of machine-gun cartridges +slung about their persons have gone. + + +The second noticeable thing, especially in the Nevsky, which +was once crowded with people too fashionably dressed, is +the general lack of new clothes. I did not see anybody +wearing clothes that looked less than two years old, with the +exception of some officers and soldiers who are as well +equipped nowadays as at the beginning of the war. +Petrograd ladies were particularly fond of boots, and of +boots there is an extreme shortage. I saw one young woman +in a well-preserved, obviously costly fur coat, and beneath +it straw shoes with linen wrappings. + + +We had started rather late, so we took a train half-way up +the Nevsky. The tram conductors are still women. The +price of tickets has risen to a rouble, usually, I noticed, paid +in stamps. It used to be ten kopecks. + + +The armoured car which used to stand at the entrance of +Smolni has disappeared and been replaced by a horrible +statue of Karl Marx, who stands, thick and heavy, on a stout +pedestal, holding behind him an enormous top-hat like +the muzzle of an eighteen-inch gun. The only signs of +preparations for defence that remain are the pair of light +field guns which, rather the worse for weather, still stand +under the pillars of the portico which they would probably +shake to pieces if ever they should be fired. Inside the +routine was as it used to be, and when I turned down the +passage to get my permit to go upstairs, I could hardly +believe that I had been away for so long. The place is +emptier than it was. There is not the same eager crowd of +country delegates pressing up and down the corridors and +collecting literature from the stalls that I used to see in the +old days when the serious little workman from the Viborg +side stood guard over Trotsky's door, and from the alcove +with its window looking down into the great hall, the endless +noise of debate rose from the Petrograd Soviet that met +below. + + +Litvinov invited me to have dinner with the Petrograd +Commissars, which I was very glad to do, partly because I +was hungry and partly because I thought it would be better +to meet Zinoviev thus than in any other manner, +remembering how sourly he had looked upon me earlier +in the revolution. Zinoviev is a Jew, with a lot of hair, a +round smooth face, and a very abrupt manner. He was +against the November Revolution, but when it had been +accomplished returned to his old allegiance to Lenin and, +becoming President of the Northern Commune, remained in +Petrograd when the Government moved to Moscow. He is +neither an original thinker nor a good orator except in +debate, in answering opposition, which he does with extreme +skill. His nerve was badly shaken by the murders of his +friends Volodarsky and Uritzky last year, and he is said to +have lost his head after the attack on Lenin, to whom he is +extremely devoted. I have heard many Communists attribute +to this fact the excesses which followed that event in +Petrograd. I have never noticed anything that would make +me consider him pro-German, though of course he is +pro-Marx. He has, however, a decided prejudice against the +English. He was among the Communists who put +difficulties in my way as a "bourgeois journalist" in the +earlier days of the revolution, and I had heard that he had +expressed suspicion and disapproval of Radek's intimacy +with me. + + +I was amused to see his face when he came in and saw me +sitting at the table. Litvinov introduced me to him, very +tactfully telling him of Lockhart's attack upon me, +whereupon he became quite decently friendly, and said that +if I could stay a few days in Petrograd on my way back from +Moscow he would see that I had access to the historical +material I wanted, about the doings of the Petrograd Soviet +during the time I had been away. I told him I was surprised +to find him here and not at Kronstadt, and asked about the +mutiny and the treachery of the Semenovsky regiment. +There was a shout of laughter, and Pozern explained that +there was no Semenovsky regiment in existence, and that the +manufacturers of the story, every word of which was a lie, +had no doubt tried to give realism to it by putting in the +name of the regiment which had taken a chief part in putting +down the Moscow insurrection of fourteen years ago. +Pozern, a thin, bearded man, with glasses, was sitting at the +other end of the table, as Military Commissar of the +Northern Commune. + + +Dinner in Smolni was the same informal affair that it +was in the old days, only with much less to eat. The +Commissars, men and women, came in from their work, +took their places, fed and went back to work again, Zinoviev +in particular staying only a few minutes. The meal was +extremely simple, soup with shreds of horseflesh in it, very +good indeed, followed by a little kasha together with small +slabs of some sort of white stuff of no particular consistency +or taste. Then tea and a lump of sugar. The conversation +was mostly about the chances of peace, and Litvinov's rather +pessimistic reports were heard with disappointment. Just as +I had finished, Vorovsky, Madame Vorovsky and little Nina, +together with the two Norwegians and the Swede, came in. +I learnt that about half the party were going on to Moscow +that night and, deciding to go with them, hurried off to the +hotel. + + + + + + + + + +PETROGRAD TO MOSCOW + + + +There was, of course, a dreadful scrimmage about getting +away. Several people were not ready at the last minute. +Only one motor was obtainable for nine persons with their +light luggage, and a motor lorry for the heavy things. I +chose to travel on the lorry with the luggage and had a fine +bumpity drive to the station, reminding me of similar though +livelier experiences in the earlier days of the revolution when +lorries were used for the transport of machine guns, red +guards, orators, enthusiasts of all kinds, and any stray +persons who happened to clamber on. + + +At the Nikolai Station we found perfect order until we got +into our wagon, an old third-class wagon, in which a +certain number of places which one of the party had +reserved had been occupied by people who had no right +to be there. Even this difficulty was smoothed out in a +manner that would have been impossible a year +or even six months ago. + + +The wagon was divided by a door in the middle. There +were open coup=82s and side seats which became plank beds +when necessary. We slept in three tiers on the bare boards. +I had a very decent place on the second tier, and, by a bit of +good luck, the topmost bench over my head was occupied +only by luggage, which gave me room to climb up there and +sit more or less upright under the roof with my legs dangling +above the general tumult of mothers, babies, and Bolsheviks +below. At each station at which the train stopped there was +a general procession backwards and forwards through the +wagon. Everybody who had a kettle or a coffee-pot or a tin +can, or even an empty meat tin, crowded through the +carriage and out to get boiling water. I had nothing but a +couple of thermos flasks, but with these I joined the others. +>From every carriage on the train people poured out and +hurried to the taps. No one controlled the taps but, with the +instinct for co-operation for which Russians are remarkable, +people formed themselves automatically into queues, and by +the time the train started again everybody was back in his +place and ready for a general tea-drinking. This +performance was repeated again and again throughout the +night. People dozed off to sleep, woke up, drank more +tea, and joined in the various conversations that went on +in different parts of the carriage. Up aloft, I +listened first to one and then to another. Some were +grumbling at the price of food. Others were puzzling why +other nations insisted on being at war with them. One man +said he was a co-operator who had come by roundabout +ways from Archangel, and describing the discontent there, +told a story which I give as an illustration of the sort of thing +that is being said in Russia by non-Bolsheviks. This man, +in spite of the presence of many Communists in the carriage, +did not disguise his hostility to their theories and practice, +and none the less told this story. He said that some of +the Russian troops in the Archangel district refused to go +to the front. Their commanders, unable to compel them, +resigned and were replaced by others who, since the men persisted +in refusal, appealed for help. The barracks, so he said, were +then surrounded by American troops, and the Russians, who +had refused to go to the front to fire on other Russians, were +given the choice, either that every tenth man should be shot, +or that they should give up their ringleaders. The +ringleaders, twelve in number, were given up, were made to +dig their own graves, and shot. The whole story may well +be Archangel gossip. If so, as a specimen of such gossip, it +is not without significance. In another part of the carriage +an argument on the true nature of selfishness caused some +heat because the disputants insisted on drawing their +illustrations from each other's conduct. Then there was the +diversion of a swearing match at a wayside station between +the conductor and some one who tried to get into this +carriage and should have got into another. Both were fluent +and imaginative swearers, and even the man from Archangel +stopped talking to listen to them. One, I remember, prayed +vehemently that the other's hand might fly off, and the other, +not to be outdone, retorted with a similar prayer with regard +to the former's head. In England the dispute, which became +very fierce indeed, would have ended in assault, but here +it ended in nothing but the collection on the platform of a +small crowd of experts in bad language who applauded +verbal hits with impartiality and enthusiasm. + + +At last I tried to sleep, but the atmosphere in the carriage, of +smoke, babies, stale clothes, and the peculiar smell of the +Russian peasantry which no one who has known it can +forget, made sleep impossible. But I travelled fairly +comfortably, resolutely shutting my ears to the talk, thinking +of fishing in England, and shifting from one bone to another +as each ached in turn from contact with the plank on which I +lay. + + + + + +FIRST DAYS IN MOSCOW + + + +It was a rare cold day when I struggled through the crowd +out of the station in Moscow, and began fighting with the +sledge-drivers who asked a hundred roubles to take me to +the Metropole. I remembered coming here a year ago with +Colonel Robins, when we made ten roubles a limit for the +journey and often travelled for eight. To-day, after heated +bargaining, I got carried with no luggage but a typewriter for +fifty roubles. The streets were white with deep snow, less +well cleaned than the Petrograd streets of this year but better +cleaned than the Moscow streets of last year. The tramways +were running. There seemed to be at least as many sledges +as usual, and the horses were in slightly better condition than +last summer when they were scarcely able to drag +themselves along. I asked the reason of the improvement, +and the driver told me the horses]26]were now rationed like +human beings, and all got a small allowance of oats. There +were crowds of people about, but the numbers of closed +shops were very depressing. I did not then know that this +was due to the nationalization of trade and a sort of general +stock-taking, the object of which was to prevent +profiteering in manufactured goods, etc., of which there +were not enough to go round. Before I left many shops +were being reopened as national concerns, like our own +National Kitchens. Thus, one would see over a shop the +inscription, "The 5th Boot Store of the Moscow Soviet" or +"The 3rd Clothing Store of the Moscow Soviet" or "The +11th Book Shop." It had been found that speculators +bought, for example, half a dozen overcoats, and sold them +to the highest bidders, thus giving the rich an advantage over +the poor. Now if a man needs a new suit he has to go in his +rags to his House Committee, and satisfy them that he really +needs a new suit for himself. He is then given the right to +buy a suit. In this way an attempt is made to prevent +speculation and to ensure a more or less equitable +distribution of the inadequate stocks. My greatest surprise +was given me by the Metropole itself, because the old +wounds of the revolution, which were left unhealed all last +summer, the shell-holes and bullet splashes which marked it +when I was here before, have been repaired. + + +Litvinov had given me a letter to Karakhan of the +Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, asking him to help me in +getting a room. I found him at the Metropole, still smoking +as it were the cigar of six months ago. Karakhan, a +handsome Armenian, elegantly bearded and moustached, +once irreverently described by Radek as "a donkey of +classical beauty," who has consistently used such influence +as he has in favour of moderation and agreement with the +Allies, greeted me very cordially, and told me that the +foreign visitors were to be housed in the Kremlin. I told him +I should much prefer to live in an hotel in the ordinary way, +and he at once set about getting a room for me. This was no +easy business, though he obtained an authorization from +Sverdlov, president of the executive committee, for me to +live where I wished, in the Metropole or the National, which +are mostly reserved for Soviet delegates, officials and +members of the Executive Committee. Both were full, and +he finally got me a room in the old Loskutnaya Hotel, now +the Red Fleet, partially reserved for sailor delegates and +members of the Naval College. + + +Rooms are distributed on much the same plan as clothes. +Housing is considered a State monopoly, and a general +census of housing accommodation has taken place. In every +district there are housing committees to whom people +wanting rooms apply. They work on the rough and ready +theory that until every man has one room no one has a right +to two. An Englishman acting as manager of works near +Moscow told me that part of his house had been allotted to +workers in his factory, who, however, were living with him +amicably, and had, I think, allowed him to choose which +rooms he should concede. This plan has, of course, proved +very hard on house-owners, and in some cases the new +tenants have made a horrible mess of the houses, as might, +indeed, have been expected, seeing that they had previously +been of those who had suffered directly from the +decivilizing influences of overcrowding. After talking for +some time we went round the corner to the Commissariat +for Foreign Affairs, where we found Chicherin who, I +thought, had aged a good deal and was (though this was +perhaps his manner) less cordial than Karakhan. He asked +about England, and I told him Litvinov knew more about +that than I, since he had been there more recently. He asked +what I thought would be the effect of his Note with detailed +terms published that day. I told him that Litvinov, in an +interview which I had telegraphed, had mentioned somewhat +similar terms some time before, and that personally I +doubted whether the Allies would at present come to any +agreement with the Soviet Government, but that, if the +Soviet Government lasted, my personal opinion was that the +commercial isolation of so vast a country as Russia could +hardly be prolonged indefinitely on that account alone. (For +the general attitude to that Note, see page 44.) + + +I then met Voznesensky (Left Social Revolutionary), of the +Oriental Department, bursting with criticism of the +Bolshevik attitude towards his party. He secured a ticket for +me to get dinner in the Metropole. This ticket I had to +surrender when I got a room in the National. The dinner +consisted of a plate of soup, and a very small portion of +something else. There are National Kitchens in different +parts of the town supplying similar meals. Glasses of weak +tea were sold at 30 kopecks each, without sugar. My sister +had sent me a small bottle of saccharine just before I left +Stockholm, and it was pathetic to see the childish delight +with which some of my friends drank glasses of sweetened +tea. + + +>From the Metropole I went to the Red Fleet to get my room +fixed up. Six months ago there were comparatively clean +rooms here, but the sailors have demoralized the hotel and +its filth is indescribable. There was no heating and very little +light. A samovar left after the departure of the last visitor +was standing on the table, together with some dirty +curl-papers and other rubbish. I got the waiter to clean up +more or less, and ordered a new samovar. He could not +supply spoon, knife, or fork, and only with great difficulty +was persuaded to lend me glasses. + + +The telephone, however, was working, and after tea I got +into touch with Madame Radek, who had moved from the +Metropole into the Kremlin. I had not yet got a pass to the +Kremlin, so she arranged to meet me and get a pass for me +from the Commandant. I walked through the snow to the +white gate at the end of the bridge which leads over the +garden up a steep incline to the Kremlin. Here a fire of logs +was burning, and three soldiers were sitting around it. +Madame Radek was waiting for me, warming her hands at +the fire, and we went together into the citadel of the +republic. + + +A meeting of the People's Commissars was going on in the +Kremlin, and on an open space under the ancient churches +were a number of motors black on the snow. We turned to +the right down the Dvortzovaya street, between the old +Cavalier House and the Potyeshny Palace, and went in +through a door under the archway that crosses the road, and +up some dark flights of stairs to a part of the building that +used, I think, to be called the Pleasure Palace. Here, in a +wonderful old room, hung with Gobelins tapestries +absolutely undamaged by the revolution, and furnished with +carved chairs, we found the most incongruous figure of +the old Swiss internationalist, Karl Moor, who talked with +affection of Keir Hardie and of Hyndman, "in the days +when he was a socialist," and was disappointed to find that I +knew so little about them. Madame Radek asked, of course, +for the latest news of Radek, and I told her that I had read in +the Stockholm papers that he had gone to Brunswick, and +was said to be living in the palace there.* [(*)It was not +till later that we learned he had returned to Berlin, been +arrested, and put in prison.] She feared he might have been +in Bremen when that town was taken by the Government +troops, and did not believe he would ever get back to Russia. +She asked me, did I not feel already (as indeed I did) the +enormous difference which the last six months had made in +strengthening the revolution. I asked after old +acquaintances, and learnt that Pyatakov, who, when I last +saw him, was praying that the Allies should give him +machine rifles to use against the Germans in the Ukraine, +had been the first President of the Ukrainian Soviet +Republic, but had since been replaced by Rakovsky. It had +been found that the views of the Pyatakov government +were further left than those of its supporters, and so +Pyatakov had given way to Rakovsky who was better able to +conduct a more moderate policy. The Republic had been +proclaimed in Kharkov, but at that time Kiev was still in the +hands of the Directorate. + + +That night my room in the Red Fleet was so cold that I went +to bed in a sheepskin coat under rugs and all possible +bedclothes with a mattress on the top. Even so I slept very +badly. + + + +The next day I spent in vain wrestlings to get a better room. +Walking about the town I found it dotted with revolutionary +sculptures, some very bad, others interesting, all done in +some haste and set up for the celebrations of the anniversary +of the revolution last November. The painters also had been +turned loose to do what they could with the hoardings, and +though the weather had damaged many of their pictures, +enough was left to show what an extraordinary carnival that +had been. Where a hoarding ran along the front of a house +being repaired the painters had used the whole of it as a vast +canvas on which they had painted huge symbolic pictures +of the revolution. A whole block in the Tverskaya was so +decorated. Best, I think, were the row of wooden booths +almost opposite the Hotel National in the Okhotnia Ryadi. +These had been painted by the futurists or kindred artists, +and made a really delightful effect, their bright colours and +naif patterns seeming so natural to Moscow that I found +myself wondering how it was that they had never been so +painted before. They used to be a uniform dull yellow. +Now, in clear primary colours, blue, red, yellow, with rough +flower designs, on white and chequered back-grounds, with +the masses of snow in the road before them, and +bright-kerchiefed women and peasants in ruddy sheepskin coats +passing by, they seemed less like futurist paintings than like +some traditional survival, linking new Moscow with the +Middle Ages. It is perhaps interesting to note that certain +staid purists in the Moscow Soviet raised a protest while I +was there against the license given to the futurists to spread +themselves about the town, and demanded that the art of the +revolution should be more comprehensible and less violent. +These criticisms, however, did not apply to the row of +booths which were a pleasure to me every time I passed +them. + + +In the evening I went to see Reinstein in the National. +Reinstein is a little old grandfather, a member of the +American Socialist Labour Party, who was tireless in helping +the Americans last year, and is a prodigy of knowledge +about the revolution. He must be nearly seventy, never +misses a meeting of the Moscow Soviet or the Executive +Committee, gets up at seven in the morning, and goes from +one end of Moscow to the other to lecture to the young men +in training as officers for the Soviet Army, more or less +controls the English soldier war prisoners, about whose +Bolshevism he is extremely pessimistic, and enjoys an +official position as head of the quite futile department which +prints hundred-weight upon hundred-weight of +propaganda in English, none of which by any chance ever +reaches these shores. He was terribly disappointed that I had +brought no American papers with me. He complained of +the lack of transport, a complaint which I think I must have +heard at least three times a day from different people the +whole time I was in Moscow. Politically, he thought, the +position could not be better, though economically it was very +bad. When they had corn, as it were, in sight, they could +not get it to the towns for lack of locomotives. These +economic difficulties were bound to react sooner or later on +the political position. + + +He talked about the English prisoners. The men are brought +to Moscow, where they are given special passports and are +allowed to go anywhere they like about the town without +convoy of any kind. I asked about the officers, and he said +that they were in prison but given everything possible, a +member of the International Red Cross, who worked with +the Americans when they were here, visiting them regularly +and taking in parcels for them. He told me that on hearing +in Moscow that some sort of fraternization was going on on +the Archangel front, he had hurried off there with two +prisoners, one English and one American. With some +difficulty a meeting was arranged. Two officers and a +sergeant from the Allied side and Reinstein and these two +prisoners from the Russian, met on a bridge midway +between the opposing lines. The conversation seemed +to have been mostly an argument about working-class +conditions in America, together with reasons why the Allies +should go home and leave Russia alone. Finally the Allied +representatives (I fancy Americans) asked Reinstein to come +with them to Archangel and state his case, promising him +safe conduct there and back. By this time two Russians had +joined the group, and one of them offered his back as a +desk, on which a safe-conduct for Reinstein was written. +Reinstein, who showed me the safe-conduct, doubted its +validity, and said that anyhow he could not have used it +without instructions from Moscow. When it grew dusk they +prepared to separate. The officers said to the prisoners, +"What? Aren't you coming back with us?" The two shook +their heads decidedly, and said, "No, thank you." + + +I learnt that some one was leaving the National next day to +go to Kharkov, so that I should probably be able to get a +room. After drinking tea with Reinstein till pretty late, I +went home, burrowed into a mountain of all sorts of clothes, +and slept a little. + + +In the morning I succeeded in making out my claim to +the room at the National, which turned out to be a very +pleasant one, next door to the kitchen and therefore quite +decently warm. I wasted a lot of time getting my stuff +across. Transport from one hotel to the other, though the +distance is not a hundred yards, cost forty roubles. I got +things straightened out, bought some books, and prepared a +list of the material needed and the people I wanted to see. + + +The room was perfectly clean. The chamber-maid +who came in to tidy up quite evidently took +a pride in doing her work properly, and protested against +my throwing matches on the floor. She said she had been in +the hotel since it was opened. I asked her how she liked the +new regime. She replied that there was not enough to eat, +but that she felt freer. + + +In the afternoon I went downstairs to the main kitchens of +the hotel, where there is a permanent supply of hot water. +One enormous kitchen is set apart for the use of people +living in the hotel. Here I found a crowd of people, all using +different parts of the huge stove. There was an old +grey-haired Cossack, with a scarlet tunic under his black, +wide-skirted, narrow-waisted coat, decorated in the +Cossack fashion with ornamental cartridges. He was +warming his soup, side by side with a little Jewess making +potato-cakes. A spectacled elderly member of the +Executive Committee was busy doing something with a little +bit of meat. Two little girls were boiling potatoes in old tin +cans. In another room set apart for washing a sturdy little +long-haired revolutionary was cleaning a shirt. A woman +with her hair done up in a blue handkerchief was very +carefully ironing a blouse. Another was busy stewing sheets, +or something of that kind, in a big cauldron. And all the +time people from all parts of the hotel were coming with +their pitchers and pans, from fine copper kettles to +disreputable empty meat tins, to fetch hot water for tea. At +the other side of the corridor was a sort of counter in front +of a long window opening into yet another kitchen. Here +there was a row of people waiting with their own saucepans +and plates, getting their dinner allowances of soup and meat +in exchange for tickets. I was told that people thought they +got slightly more if they took their food in this way +straight from the kitchen to their own rooms instead of being +served in the restaurant. But I watched closely, and decided +it was only superstition. Besides, I had not got a saucepan. + + +On paying for my room at the beginning of the week I was +given a card with the days of the week printed along its +edge. This card gave me the right to buy one dinner daily, +and when I bought it that day of the week was snipped off +the card so that I could not buy another. The meal consisted +of a plate of very good soup, together with a second course +of a scrap of meat or fish. The price of the meal varied +between five and seven roubles. + + +One could obtain this meal any time between two and seven. +Living hungrily through the morning, at two o'clock I used to +experience definite relief in the knowledge that now at any +moment I could have my meal. Feeling in this way less +hungry, I used then to postpone it hour by hour, and actually +dined about five or six o'clock. Thinking that I might indeed +have been specially favoured I made investigations, and +found that the dinners supplied at the public feeding +houses (the equivalent of our national kitchens) were of +precisely the same size and character, any difference +between the meals depending not on the food but on the +cook. + + +A kind of rough and ready co-operative system also +obtained. One day there was a notice on the stairs that those +who wanted could get one pot of jam apiece by applying to +the provisioning committee of the hotel. I got a pot of jam +in this way, and on a later occasion a small quantity of +Ukrainian sausage. + + +Besides the food obtainable on cards it was possible to buy, +at ruinous prices, food from speculators, and an idea of the +difference in the prices may be obtained from the following +examples: Bread is one rouble 20 kopecks per pound by +card and 15 to 20 roubles per pound from the speculators. +Sugar is 12 roubles per pound by card, and never less than +50 roubles per pound in the open market. It is obvious that +abolition of the card system would mean that the rich would +have enough and the poor nothing. Various methods have +been tried in the effort to get rid of speculators whose +high profits naturally decrease the willingness of the villages +to sell bread at less abnormal rates. But as a Communist +said to me, "There is only one way to get rid of speculation, +and that is to supply enough on the card system. When +People can buy all they want at 1 rouble 20 they are not +going to pay an extra 14 roubles for the encouragement of +speculators." "And when will you be able to do that?" I +asked. "As soon as the war ends, and we can use our +transport for peaceful purposes." + + +There can be no question about the starvation of Moscow. +On the third day after my arrival in Moscow I saw a man +driving a sledge laden with, I think, horseflesh, mostly +bones, probably dead sledge horses. As he drove a black +crowd of crows followed the sledge and perched on it, +tearing greedily at the meat. He beat at them continually +with his whip, but they were so famished that they took no +notice whatever. The starving crows used even to force +their way through the small ventilators of the windows in my +hotel to pick up any scraps they could find inside. The +pigeons, which formerly crowded the streets, +utterly undismayed by the traffic, confident in the +security given by their supposed connection with religion, +have completely disappeared. + + +Nor can there be any question about the cold. I resented my +own sufferings less when I found that the State Departments +were no better off than other folk. Even in the Kremlin I +found the Keeper of the Archives sitting at work in an old +sheepskin coat and felt boots, rising now and then to beat +vitality into his freezing hands like a London cabman of old +times. + + + + + + +THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE ON THE REPLY +TO THE PRINKIPO PROPOSAL + + +February 10th. + + + +It will be remembered that a proposal was made by the +Peace Conference that the various de facto governments of +Russia should meet on an island in the Bosphorus to discuss +matters, an armistice being arranged meanwhile. No direct +invitation was sent to the Soviet Government. After +attempting to obtain particulars through the editor of a +French socialist paper, Chicherin on February 4th sent a +long note to the Allies. The note was not at first considered +with great favour in Russia, although it was approved by the +opposition parties on the right, the Mensheviks even going +so far as to say that in sending such a note, the Bolsheviks +were acting in the interest of the whole of the Russian +people. The opposition on the left complained +that it was a betrayal of the revolution into the +hands of the Entente, and there were many Bolsheviks +who said openly that they thought it went a little +too far in the way of concession. On February 10th, the +Executive Committee met to consider the international +position. + + +Before proceeding to an account of that meeting, it will be +well to make a short summary of the note in question. +Chicherin, after referring to the fact that no invitation had +been addressed to them and that the absence of a reply from +them was being treated as the rejection of a proposal they +had never received, said that in spite of its more and more +favourable position, the Russian Soviet Government +considered a cessation of hostilities so desirable that it was +ready immediately to begin negotiations, and, as it had more +than once declared, to secure agreement "even at the cost of +serious concessions in so far as these should not threaten the +development of the Republic." "Taking into consideration +that the enemies against whom it has to struggle borrow their +strength of resistance exclusively from the help shown them +by the powers of the Entente, and that therefore these +powers are the only actual enemy of the Russian Soviet +Government, the latter addresses itself precisely to the +powers of the Entente, setting out the points on which it +considers such concessions possible with a view to the +ending of every kind of conflict with the aforesaid powers." +There follows a list of the concessions they are prepared to +make. The first of these is recognition of their debts, the +interest on which, "in view of Russia's difficult financial +position and her unsatisfactory credit," they propose to +guarantee in raw materials. Then, "in view of the interest +continually expressed by foreign capital in the question of +the exploitation for its advantage of the natural resources of +Russia, the Soviet Government is ready to give to subjects of +the powers of the Entente mineral, timber and other +concessions, to be defined in detail, on condition that the +economic and social structure of Soviet Russia shall not be +touched by the internal arrangements of these concessions." +The last point is that which roused most opposition. It +expresses a willingness to negotiate even concerning such +annexations, hidden or open, as the Allies may have in +mind. The words used are "The Russian Soviet +Government has not the intention of excluding at all costs +consideration of the question of annexations, etc. . . ." Then, +"by annexations must be understood the retention on this or +that part of the territory of what was the Russian Empire, +not including Poland and Finland, of armed forces of the +Entente or of such forces as are maintained by the +governments of the Entente or enjoy their financial, military, +technical or other support." There follows a statement that +the extent of the concessions will depend on the military +position. Chicherin proceeds to give a rather optimistic +account of the external and internal situation. Finally he +touches on the question of propaganda. "The Russian +Soviet Government, while pointing out that it cannot limit +the freedom of the revolutionary press, declares its +readiness, in case of necessity to include in the general +agreement with the powers of the Entente the obligation not +to interfere in their internal affairs." The note ends thus: +"On the foregoing bases the Russian Soviet Government is ready +immediately to begin negotiations either on Prinkipo island +or in any other place whatsoever with all the powers of the +Entente together or with separate powers of their number, +or with any Russian political groupings whatsoever, +according to the wishes of the powers of the Entente. +The Russian Soviet Government begs the powers of the +Entente immediately to inform it whither to send +its representatives, and precisely when and by what route." +This note was dated February 4th, and was sent out by wireless. + + + +>From the moment when the note appeared in the +newspapers of February 5th, it had been the main subject of +conversation. Every point in it was criticized and +counter-criticized, but even its critics, though anxious to preserve +their criticism as a basis for political action afterwards, were +desperately anxious that it should meet with a reply. No one +in Moscow at that time could have the slightest misgiving +about the warlike tendencies of the revolution. The +overwhelming mass of the people and of the revolutionary +leaders want peace, and only continued warfare forced upon +them could turn their desire for peace into desperate, +resentful aggression. Everywhere I heard the same story: +"We cannot get things straight while we have to fight all the +time." They would not admit it, I am sure, but few of the +Soviet leaders who have now for eighteen months been +wrestling with the difficulties of European Russia have not +acquired, as it were in spite of themselves, a national, +domestic point of view. They are thinking less about world +revolution than about getting bread to Moscow, or +increasing the output of textiles, or building river +power-stations to free the northern industrial district from +its dependence on the distant coal-fields. I was +consequently anxious to hear what the Executive Committee +would have to say, knowing that there I should listen to +some expression of the theoretical standpoint from which +my hard-working friends had been drawn away by interests +nearer home. + + +The Executive Committee met as usual in the big hall of the +Hotel Metropole, and it met as usual very late. The sitting +was to begin at seven, and, foolishly thinking that Russians +might have changed their nature in the last six months, I was +punctual and found the hall nearly empty, because a +party meeting of the Communists in the room next door was +not finished. The hall looked just as it used to look, with a +red banner over the presidium and another at the opposite +end, both inscribed "The All Russian Executive Committee," +"Proletariat of all lands, unite," and so on. As the room +gradually filled, I met many acquaintances. + + +Old Professor Pokrovsky came in, blinking through his +spectacles, bent a little, in a very old coat, with a small black +fur hat, his hands clasped together, just as, so I have been +told, he walked unhappily to and fro in the fortress at Brest +during the second period of the negotiations. I did not think +he would recognize me, but he came up at once, and +reminded me of the packing of the archives at the time when +it seemed likely that the Germans would take Petrograd. He +told me of a mass of material they are publishing about the +origin of the war. He said that England came out of it best +of anybody, but that France and Russia showed in a very +bad light. + + +Just then, Demian Bledny rolled in, fatter than he used to be +(admirers from the country send him food) with a round +face, shrewd laughing eyes, and cynical mouth, a typical +peasant, and the poet of the revolution. He was passably +shaved, his little yellow moustache was trimmed, he was +wearing new leather breeches, and seemed altogether a more +prosperous poet than the untidy ruffian I first met about a +year or more ago before his satirical poems in Pravda and +other revolutionary papers had reached the heights of +popularity to which they have since attained. In the old days +before the revolution in Petrograd he used to send his poems +to the revolutionary papers. A few were published and +scandalized the more austere and serious-minded +revolutionaries, who held a meeting to decide +whether any more were to be printed. Since the +revolution, he has rapidly come into his own, and is now a +sort of licensed jester, flagellating Communists and +non-Communists alike. Even in this assembly +he had about him a little of the manner of +Robert Burns in Edinburgh society. He told me +with expansive glee that they had printed two +hundred and fifty thousand of his last book, that the whole +edition was sold in two weeks, and that he had had his +portrait painted by a real artist. It is actually true that of his +eighteen different works, only two are obtainable today. + + +Madame Radek, who last year showed a genius for the +making of sandwiches with chopped leeks, and did good +work for Russia as head of the Committee for dealing with +Russian war prisoners, came and sat down beside me, and +complained bitterly that the authorities wanted to turn her +out of the grand ducal apartments in the Kremlin and make +them into a historical museum to illustrate the manner of life +of the Romanovs. She said she was sure that was simply an +excuse and that the real reason was that Madame Trotsky +did not like her having a better furnished room than her +own. It seems that the Trotskys, when they moved into the +Kremlin, chose a lodging extremely modest in comparison +with the gorgeous place where I had found Madame Radek. + + +All this time the room was filling, as the party meeting ended +and the members of the Executive Committee came in to +take their places. I was asking Litvinov whether he was +going to speak, when a little hairy energetic man came up +and with great delight showed us the new matches +invented in the Soviet laboratories. Russia is short of +match-wood, and without paraffin. Besides which I think I am +right in saying that the bulk of the matches used in the north +came from factories in Finland. In these new Bolshevik +matches neither wood nor paraffin is used. Waste paper is a +substitute for one, and the grease that is left after cleaning +wool is a substitute for the other. The little man, Berg, +secretary of the Presidium of the Council of Public +Economy, gave me a packet of his matches. They are like +the matches in a folding cover that used to be common in +Paris. You break off a match before striking it. They strike +and burn better than any matches I have ever bought in +Russia, and I do not see why they should not be made in +England, where we have to import all the materials of which +ordinary matches are made. I told Berg I should try to +patent them and so turn myself into a capitalist. Another +Communist, who was listening, laughed, and said that most +fortunes were founded in just such a fraudulent way. + + +Then there was Steklov of the Izvestia, Madame +Kollontai, and a lot of other people whose +names I do not remember. Little Bucharin, the editor of +Pravda and one of the most interesting talkers in Moscow, +who is ready to discuss any philosophy you like, from +Berkeley and Locke down to Bergson and William James, +trotted up and shook hands. Suddenly a most unexpected +figure limped through the door. This was the lame Eliava of +the Vologda Soviet, who came up in great surprise at seeing +me again, and reminded me how Radek and I, hungry from +Moscow, astonished the hotel of the Golden Anchor by +eating fifteen eggs apiece, when we came to Vologda last +summer (I acted as translator during Radek's conversations +with the American Ambassador and Mr. Lindley). Eliava is +a fine, honest fellow, and had a very difficult time in +Vologda where the large colony of foreign embassies and +missions naturally became the centre of disaffection in a +district which at the time was full of inflammable material. I +remember when we parted from him, Radek said to me that +he hardly thought he would see him alive again. He told me +he had left Vologda some three months ago and was now +going to Turkestan. He did not disguise the resentment +he felt towards M. Noulens (the French Ambassador) who, +he thought, had stood in the way of agreement last year, but +said that he had nothing whatever to say against Lindley. + + +At last there was a little stir in the raised presidium, and the +meeting began. When I saw the lean, long-haired Avanesov +take his place as secretary, and Sverdlov, the president, lean +forward a little, ring his bell, and announce that the meeting +was open and that "Comrade Chicherin has the word," I +could hardly believe that I had been away six months. + + +Chicherin's speech took the form of a general report on the +international situation. He spoke a little more clearly than he +was used to do, but even so I had to walk round to a place +close under the tribune before I could hear him. He +sketched the history of the various steps the Soviet +Government has taken in trying to secure peace, even +including such minor "peace offensives" as Litvinov's +personal telegram to President Wilson. He then weighed, in +no very hopeful spirit, the possibilities of this last Note to all +the Allies having any serious result. He estimated the +opposing tendencies for and against war with Russia in each +of the principal countries concerned. The growth of +revolutionary feeling abroad made imperialistic governments +even more aggressive towards the Workers' and Peasants' +Republic than they would otherwise be. It was now making +their intervention difficult, but no more. It was impossible to +say that the collapse of Imperialism had gone so far that it +had lost its teeth. Chicherin speaks as if he were a dead man +or a ventriloquist's lay figure. And indeed he is half-dead. +He has never learnt the art of releasing himself from +drudgery by handing it over to his subordinates. He is +permanently tired out. You feel it is almost cruel to say +"Good morning" to him when you meet him, because of the +appeal to be left alone that comes unconsciously into his +eyes. Partly in order to avoid people, partly because he is +himself accustomed to work at night, his section of the +foreign office keeps extraordinary hours, is not to be found +till about five in the afternoon and works till four in the +morning. The actual material of his report was interesting, +but there was nothing in its manner to rouse enthusiasm +of any kind. The audience listened with attention, but only +woke into real animation when with a shout of laughter it +heard an address sent to Cl=82menceau by the emigr=82 +financiers, aristocrats and bankrupt politicians of the Russian +colony in Stockholm, protesting against any sort of +agreement with the Bolsheviks. + + +Bucharin followed Chicherin. A little eager figure in his +neat brown clothes (bought, I think, while visiting Berlin as a +member of the Economic Commission), he at least makes +himself clearly heard, though his voice has a funny tendency +to breaking. He compared the present situation with the +situation before Brest. He had himself (as I well remember) +been with Radek, one of the most violent opponents of the +Brest peace, and he now admitted that at that time Lenin had +been right and he wrong. The position was now different, +because whereas then imperialism was split into two camps +fighting each other, it now showed signs of uniting its forces. +He regarded the League of Nations as a sort of capitalist +syndicate, and said that the difference in the French and +American attitude towards the League depended upon +the position of French and American capital. Capital in +France was so weak, that she could at best be only a small +shareholder. Capital in America was in a very advantageous +position. America therefore wanted a huge All-European +syndicate in which each state would have a certain number +of shares. America, having the greatest number of shares, +would be able to exploit all the other nations. This is a fixed +idea of Bucharin's, and he has lost no opportunity of putting +out this theory of the League of Nations since the middle of +last summer. As for Chicherin's Note, he said it had at least +great historical interest on account of the language it used, +which was very different from the hypocritical language of +ordinary diplomacy. Here were no phrases about noble +motives, but a plain recognition of the facts of the case. +"Tell us what you want," it says, "and we are ready to buy +you off, in order to avoid armed conflict." Even if the Allies +gave no answer the Note would still have served a useful +purpose and would be a landmark in history. + + + +Litvinov followed Bucharin. A solid, jolly, round man, with +his peaked grey fur hat on his head, rounder than ever in +fur-collared, thick coat, his eye-glasses slipping from his +nose as he got up, his grey muffler hanging from his neck, +he hurried to the tribune. Taking off his things and leaving +them on a chair below, he stepped up into the tribune with +his hair all rumpled, a look of extreme seriousness on his +face, and spoke with a voice whose capacity and strength +astonished me who had not heard him speak in public +before. He spoke very well, with more sequence than +Bucharin, and much vitality, and gave his summary of the +position abroad. He said (and Lenin expressed the same +view to me afterwards) that the hostility of different +countries to Soviet Russia varied in direct proportion to their +fear of revolution at home. Thus France, whose capital had +suffered most in the war and was weakest, was the most +uncompromising, while America, whose capital was in a +good position, was ready for agreement. England, with +rather less confidence, he thought was ready to follow +America. Need of raw material was the motive tending +towards agreement with Russia. Fear that the mere +existence of a Labour Government anywhere in the +world strengthens the revolutionary movement elsewhere, +was the motive for the desire to wipe out the Soviet at all +cost. Chicherin's note, he thought, would emphasize the +difference between these opposing views and would tend to +make impossible an alliance of the capitalists against Russia. + + +Finally, Kamenev, now President of the Moscow Soviet, +spoke, objecting to Bucharin's comparison of the peace now +sought with that of Brest Litovsk. Then everything was in a +state of experiment and untried. Now it was clear to the +world that the unity of Russia could be achieved only under +the Soviets. The powers opposed to them could not but +recognize this fact. Some parts of Russia (Ukraine) had +during the last fifteen months experienced every kind of +government, from the Soviets, the dictatorship of the +proletariat, to the dictatorship of foreign invaders and the +dictatorship of a General of the old regime, and they had +after all returned to the Soviets. Western European +imperialists must realize that the only Government in Russia +which rested on the popular masses was the Government +of the Soviets and no other. Even the paper of the +Mensheviks, commenting on Chicherin's note, had declared +that by this step the Soviet Government had shown that it +was actually a national Government acting in the interests of +the nation. He further read a statement by Right Social +Revolutionaries (delegates of that group, members of the +Constituent Assembly, were in the gallery) to the effect that +they were prepared to help the Soviet Government as the +only Government in Russia that was fighting against a +dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. + + +Finally, the Committee unanimously passed a resolution +approving every step taken in trying to obtain peace, and at +the same time "sending a fraternal greeting to the Red Army +of workers and peasants engaged in ensuring the +independence of Soviet Russia." The meeting then turned to +talk of other things. + + +I left, rather miserable to think how little I had foreseen +when Soviet Russia was compelled last year to sign an +oppressive peace with Germany, that the time would +come when they would be trying to buy peace from +ourselves. As I went out I saw another unhappy figure, +unhappy for quite different reasons. Angelica Balabanova, +after dreaming all her life of socialism in the most fervent +Utopian spirit, had come at last to Russia to find that a +socialist state was faced with difficulties at least as real as +those which confront other states, that in the battle there was +little sentiment and much cynicism, and that dreams worked +out in terms of humanity in the face of the opposition of the +whole of the rest of the world are not easily recognized by +their dreamers. Poor little Balabanova, less than five feet +high, in a black coat that reached to her feet but did not +make her look any taller, was wandering about like a lost and +dejected spirit. Not so, she was thinking, should socialists +deal with their enemies. Somehow, but not so. Had the +silver trumpets blown seven times in vain, and was it really +necessary to set to work and, stone by stone, with bleeding +hands, level the walls of Jericho? + + +There was snow falling as I walked home. Two workmen, +arguing, were walking in front of me. "If only it were not +for the hunger," said one. "But will that ever change?" said +the other. + + + + +KAMENEV AND THE MOSCOW SOVIET + + + +February 11th. + + +Litvinov has been unlucky in his room in the Metropole. It +is small, dark and dirty, and colder than mine. He was +feeling ill and his chest was hurting him, perhaps because of +his speech last night; but while I was there Kamenev rang +him up on the telephone, told him he had a car below, and +would he come at once to the Moscow Soviet to speak on +the international situation! Litvinov tried to excuse himself, +but it was no use, and he said to me that if I wanted to see +Kamenev I had better come along. We found Kamenev in +the hall, and after a few minutes in a little Ford car we were +at the Moscow Soviet. The Soviet meets in the small lecture +theatre of the old Polytechnic. When we arrived, a party +meeting was going on, and Kamenev, Litvinov, and I went +behind the stage to a little empty room, where we were +joined by a member of the Soviet whose name I forget. + + +It was Kamenev's first talk with Litvinov after his return, and +I think they forgot that I was there. Kamenev asked Litvinov +what he meant to do, and Litvinov told him he wished to +establish a special department of control to receive all +complaints, to examine into the efficiency of different +commissariats, to get rid of parallelism, etc., and, in fact, to +be the most unpopular department in Moscow. Kamenev +laughed. "You need not think you are the first to have that +idea. Every returning envoy without exception has the same. +Coming back from abroad they notice more than we do the +inefficiencies here, and at once think they will set everything +right. Rakovsky sat here for months dreaming of nothing +else. Joffe was the same when he came back from that tidy +Berlin. Now you; and when Vorovsky comes (Vorovsky +was still in Petrograd) I am ready to wager that he too has a +scheme for general control waiting in his pocket. The thing +cannot be done. The only way is, when something +obviously needs doing, to put in some one we can trust to +get it done. Soap is hard to get. Good. Establish a +commission and soap instantly disappears. But put in one +man to see that soap is forthcoming, and somehow or other +we get it." + + + +"Where is the soap industry concentrated?" + + +"There are good factories, well equipped, here, but they are +not working, partly for lack of material and partly, perhaps, +because some crazy fool imagined that to take an inventory +you must bring everything to a standstill." + + +Litvinov asked him what he thought of the position as a +whole. He said good, if only transport could be improved; +but before the public of Moscow could feel an appreciable +improvement it would be necessary that a hundred wagons +of foodstuffs should be coming in daily. At present there +are seldom more than twenty. I asked Kamenev about the +schools, and he explained that one of their difficulties was +due to the militarism forced upon them by external attacks. +He explained that the new Red Army soldiers, being mostly +workmen, are accustomed to a higher standard of comfort +than the old army soldiers, who were mostly peasants. They +objected to the planks which served as beds in the old, +abominable, over-crowded and unhealthy barracks. +Trotsky, looking everywhere for places to put his darlings, +found nothing more suitable than the schools; and, in +Kamenev's words, "We have to fight hard for every school." +Another difficulty, he said, was the lack of school books. +Histories, for example, written under the censorship and in +accordance with the principles of the old regime, were now +useless, and new ones were not ready, apart from the +difficulty of getting paper and of printing. A lot, however, +was being done. There was no need for a single child in +Moscow to go hungry. 150,000 to 180,000 children got free +meals daily in the schools. Over 10,000 pairs of felt boots +had been given to children who needed them. The number +of libraries had enormously increased. Physically workmen +lived in far worse conditions than in 1912, but as far as their +spiritual welfare was concerned there could be no +comparison. Places like the famous Yar restaurant, +where once the rich went to amuse themselves with +orgies of feeding and drinking and flirting +with gypsies, were now made into working men's clubs +and theatres, where every working man had a right to go. +As for the demand for literature from the provinces, it was +far beyond the utmost efforts of the presses and the paper +stores to supply. + + + +When the party meeting ended, we went back to the lecture +room where the members of the Soviet had already settled +themselves in their places. I was struck at once by the +absence of the general public which in the old days used to +crowd the galleries to overflowing. The political excitement +of the revolution has passed, and today there were no more +spectators than are usually to be found in the gallery of the +House of Commons. The character of the Soviet itself had +not changed. Practically every man sitting on the benches +was obviously a workman and keenly intent on what was +being said. Litvinov practically repeated his speech of last +night, making it, however, a little more demagogic in +character, pointing out that after the Allied victory, the only +corner of the world not dominated by Allied capital was +Soviet Russia. + + +The Soviet passed a resolution expressing +"firm confidence that the Soviet Government will +succeed in getting peace and so in opening a wide road to +the construction of a proletarian state." A note was passed +up to Kamenev who, glancing at it, announced that the +newly elected representative of the Chinese workmen in +Moscow wished to speak. This was Chitaya Kuni, a solid +little Chinaman with a big head, in black leather coat and +breeches. I had often seen him before, and wondered who +he was. He was received with great cordiality and made a +quiet, rather shy speech in which he told them he was +learning from them how to introduce socialism in China, and +more compliments of the same sort. Reinstein replied, +telling how at an American labour congress some years back +the Americans shut the door in the face of a representative +of a union of foreign workmen. "Such," he said, "was the +feeling in America at the time when Gompers was supreme, +but that time has passed." Still, as I listened to Reinstein, I +wondered in how many other countries besides Russia, a +representative of foreign labour would be thus welcomed. +The reason has probably little to do with the +good-heartedness of the Russians. Owing to the +general unification of wages Mr. Kuni could not +represent the competition of cheap labour. I talked to the +Chinaman afterwards. He is president of the Chinese +Soviet. He told me they had just about a thousand Chinese +workmen in Moscow, and therefore had a right to +representation in the government of the town. I asked about +the Chinese in the Red Army, and he said there were two or +three thousand, not more. + + + + +AN EX-CAPITALIST + + + +February 13th. + + +I drank tea with an old acquaintance from the provinces, a +Russian who, before the revolution, owned a leather-bag +factory which worked in close connection with his uncle's +tannery. He gave me a short history of events at home. The +uncle had started with small capital, and during the war had +made enough to buy outright the tannery in which he had +had shares. The story of his adventures since the October +revolution is a very good illustration of the rough and ready +way in which theory gets translated into practice. I am +writing it, as nearly as possible, as it was told by the nephew. + + +During the first revolution, that is from March till October +1917, he fought hard against the workmen, and was one +of the founders of a Soviet of factory owners, the object of +which was to defeat the efforts of the workers' Soviets.* + [(*)By agreeing upon lock-outs,etc.] This, of course, +was smashed by the October Revolution, and "Uncle, after +being forced, as a property owner, to pay considerable +contributions, watched the newspapers closely, realized that +after the nationalization of the banks resistance was +hopeless, and resigned himself to do what he could, not to +lose his factory altogether." + + +He called together all the workmen, and proposed that they +should form an artel or co-operative society +and take the factory into their own hands, each man +contributing a thousand roubles towards the capital with +which to run it. Of course the workmen had +not got a thousand roubles apiece, "so uncle offered to pay it +in for them, on the understanding that they would eventually +pay him back." This was illegal, but the little town was a +long way from the centre of things, and it seemed a good +way out of the difficulty. He did not expect to get it back, +but he hoped in this way to keep control of the tannery, +which he wished to develop, having a paternal interest in it. + + +Things worked very well. They elected a committee of +control. "Uncle was elected president, I was elected +vice-president, and there were three workmen. We are +working on those lines to this day. They give uncle 1,500 +roubles a month, me a thousand, and the bookkeeper a +thousand. The only difficulty is that the men will treat uncle +as the owner, and this may mean trouble if things go wrong. +Uncle is for ever telling them, It's your factory, don't call +me Master,' and they reply, 'Yes, it's our factory all right, but +you are still Master, and that must be.'" + + +Trouble came fast enough, with the tax levied on the +propertied classes. "Uncle," very wisely, had ceased to be a +property owner. He had given up his house to the factory, +and been allotted rooms in it, as president of the factory +Soviet. He was therefore really unable to pay when the +people from the District Soviet came to tell him that he had +been assessed to pay a tax of sixty thousand roubles. He +explained the position. The nephew was also present and +joined in the argument, whereupon the tax-collectors +consulted a bit of paper and retorted, "A tax of twenty +thousand has been assessed on you too. Be so good as to +put your coat on." + + +That meant arrest, and the nephew said he had five +thousand roubles and would pay that, but could pay no +more. Would that do? + + +"Very well," said the tax-collector, "fetch it." + + +The nephew fetched it. + + +"And now put your coat on." + + +"But you said it would be all right if I paid the five +thousand!" + + +"That's the only way to deal with people like you. We +recognize that your case is hard, and we dare say that you +will get off. But the Soviet has told us to collect the whole +tax or the people who refuse to pay it, and they have +decreed that if we came back without one or the other, we +shall go to prison ourselves. You can hardly expect us to go +and sit in prison out of pity for you. So on with your coat +and come along." + + +They went, and at the militia headquarters were shut into a +room with barred windows where they were presently joined +by most of the other rich men of the town, all in a rare state +of indignation, and some of them very angry with "Uncle," +for taking things so quietly. "Uncle was worrying about +nothing in the world but the tannery and the +leather-works which he was afraid might get into +difficulties now that both he and I were under lock and key." + + +The plutocracy of the town being thus gathered in the little +room at the militia-house, their wives came, timorously at first, and +chattered through the windows. My informant, being +unmarried, sent word to two or three of his friends, in order +that he might not be the only one without some one to talk +with outside. The noise was something prodigious, and the +head of the militia finally ran out into the street and arrested +one of the women, but was so discomfited when she +removed her shawl and he recognized her as his hostess at a +house where he had been billeted as a soldier that he +hurriedly let her go. The extraordinary parliament between +the rich men of the town and their wives and friends, like a +crowd of hoodie crows, chattering outside the window, +continued until dark. + + +Next day the workmen from the tannery came to the +militia-house and explained that "Uncle" had really +ceased to be a member of the propertied classes, +that he was necessary to them as president of their soviet, +and that they were willing to secure his release by +paying half of the tax demanded from him out +of the factory funds. Uncle got together thirty +thousand, the factory contributed another thirty, and he was +freed, being given a certificate that he had ceased to be an +exploiter or a property owner, and would in future be +subject only to such taxes as might be levied on the working +population. The nephew was also freed, on the grounds that +he was wanted at the leather-works. + + +I asked him how things were going on. He said, "Fairly +well, only uncle keeps worrying because the men still call +him 'Master.' Otherwise, he is very happy because he has +persuaded the workmen to set aside a large proportion of the +profits for developing the business and building a new wing +to the tannery." + + +"Do the men work?" + + +"Well," he said, "we thought that when the factory was in +their own hands they would work better, but we do not think +they do so, not noticeably, anyhow." + + +"Do they work worse?" + + +"No, that is not noticeable either." + + +I tried to get at his political views. Last summer he had +told me that the Soviet Government could not last more than +another two or three months. He was then looking forward +to its downfall. Now he did not like it any better, but he was +very much afraid of war being brought into Russia, or rather +of the further disorders which war would cause. He took a +queer sort of pride in the way in which the territory of the +Russian republic was gradually resuming its old frontiers. +"In the old days no one ever thought the Red Army would +come to anything," he said. "You can't expect much from +the Government, but it does keep order, and I can do my +work and rub along all right." It was quite funny to hear him +in one breath grumbling at the revolution and in the next +anxiously asking whether I did not think they had weathered +the storm, so that there would be no more disorders. + + +Knowing that in some country places there had been +appalling excesses, I asked him how the Red Terror that +followed the attempt on the life of Lenin had shown itself in +their district. He laughed. + + +"We got off very cheaply," he said. "This is what +happened. A certain rich merchant's widow had a fine +house, with enormous stores of all kinds of things, fine +knives and forks, and too many of everything. For instance, +she had twenty-two samovars of all sizes and sorts. Typical +merchant's house, so many tablecloths that they could not +use them all if they lived to be a hundred. Well, one fine +day, early last summer, she was told that her house was +wanted and that she must clear out. For two days she ran +hither and thither trying to get out of giving it up. Then she +saw it was no good, and piled all those things, samovars and +knives and forks and dinner services and tablecloths and +overcoats (there were over a dozen fur overcoats) in the +garrets which she closed and sealed, and got the president of +the Soviet to come and put his seal also. In the end things +were so friendly that he even put a sentinel there to see that +the seal should not be broken. Then came the news from +Petrograd and Moscow about the Red terror, and the Soviet, +after holding a meeting and deciding that it ought to do +something, and being on too good terms with all of us to do +anything very bad, suddenly remembered poor Maria +Nicolaevna's garrets. They broke the seals and tumbled out +all the kitchen things, knives, forks, plates, furniture, the +twenty-two samovars and the overcoats, took them in carts +to the Soviet and declared them national property. National +property! And a week or two later there was a wedding of a +daughter of one of the members of the Soviet, and somehow +or other the knives and forks were on the table, and as for +samovars, there were enough to make tea for a hundreds." + + + + +A THEORIST OF REVOLUTION + + + +February 13th. + + +After yesterday's talk with a capitalist victim of the +revolution, I am glad for the sake of contrast to set beside it +a talk with one of the revolution's chief theorists. The +leather-worker illustrated the revolution as it affects an +individual. The revolutionary theorist was quite incapable of +even considering his own or any other individual interests +and thought only in terms of enormous movements in which +the experiences of an individual had only the significance of +the adventures of one ant among a myriad. Bucharin, +member of the old economic mission to Berlin, violent +opponent of the Brest peace, editor of Pravda, author of +many books on economics and revolution, indefatigable +theorist, found me drinking tea at a table in the Metropole. + + +I had just bought a copy of a magazine which contained +a map of the world, in which most of Europe was coloured +red or pink for actual or potential revolution. I showed it to +Bucharin and said, "You cannot be surprised that people +abroad talk of you as of the new Imperialists." + + +Bucharin took the map and looked at it. + + +"Idiotism, rank idiotism!" he said. "At the same time," he +added, "I do think we have entered upon a period of +revolution which may last fifty years before the revolution is +at last victorious in all Europe and finally in all the world." + + +Now, I have a stock theory which I am used to set before +revolutionaries of all kinds, nearly always with interesting +results. (See p.118.) I tried it on Bucharin. I said:- + + +"You people are always saying that there will be revolution +in England. Has it not occurred to you that England is a +factory and not a granary, so that in the event of revolution +we should be immediately cut off from all food supplies. +According to your own theories, English capital would unite +with American in ensuring that within six weeks the +revolution had nothing to eat. England is not a country like +Russia where you can feed yourselves somehow or other +by simply walking to where there is food. Six weeks would +see starvation and reaction in England. I am inclined to +think that a revolution in England would do Russia more +harm than good." + + +Bucharin laughed. "You old counter-revolutionary!" +he said. "That would be all true, but you must look +further. You are right in one thing. If the +revolution spreads in Europe, America will cut off food +supplies. But by that time we shall be getting food from +Siberia." + + +"And is the poor Siberian railway to feed Russia, Germany, +and England?" + + +"Before then Pichon and his friends will have gone. There +will be France to feed too. But you must not forget that +there are the cornfields of Hungary and Roumania. Once +civil war ends in Europe, Europe can feed herself. With +English and German engineering assistance we shall soon +turn Russia into an effective grain supply for all the working +men's republics of the Continent. But even then the task will +be only beginning. The moment there is revolution in +England, the English colonies will throw themselves +eagerly into the arms of America. Then will come +America's turn, and, finally, it is quite likely that we shall all +have to combine to overthrow the last stronghold of +capitalism in some South African bourgeois republic. I can +well imagine," he said, looking far away with his bright little +eyes through the walls of the dark dining room, "that the +working men's republics of Europe may have to have a +colonial policy of an inverse kind. Just as now you conquer +backward races in order to exploit them, so in the future you +may have to conquer the colonists to take from them the +means of exploitation. There is only one thing I am afraid +of." + + +"And what is that?" + + +"Sometimes I am afraid that the struggle will be so bitter and +so long drawn out that the whole of European culture may +be trampled under foot." + + +I thought of my leather-worker of yesterday, one of +thousands experiencing in their own persons the appalling +discomforts, the turn over and revaluation of all established +values that revolution, even without death and civil war, +means to the ordinary man; and, being perhaps a little +faint-hearted, I finished my tea in silence. Bucharin, after +carelessly opening these colossal perspectives, drank his tea +in one gulp, prodigiously sweetened with my saccharin, +reminded me of his illness in the summer, when Radek +scoured the town for sweets for him, curing him with no +other medicine, and then hurried off, fastening his coat as he +went, a queer little De Quincey of revolution, to disappear +into the dusk, before, half running, half walking, as his way +is, he reached the other end of the big dimly lit, smoke-filled dining room. + + + + +EFFECTS OF ISOLATION + + + +February 14th. + + +I had a rather grim talk with Meshtcheriakov at dinner. He +is an old Siberian exile, who visited England last summer. +He is editing a monthly magazine in Moscow, mostly +concerned with the problems of reconstrucition, and besides +that doing a lot of educational work among the labouring +classes. He is horrified at the economic position of the +country. Isolation, he thinks, is forcing Russia backwards +towards a primeval state. + + +"We simply cannot get things. For example, I am lecturing +on Mathematics. I have more pupils than I can deal with. +They are as greedy for knowledge as sponges for water, and +I cannot get even the simplest text-books for them. I cannot +even find in the second-hand book stores an old Course of Mathematics +from which I could myself make a series of copies for them. +I have to teach like a teacher of the middle ages. But, +like him, I have pupils who want to learn." + + +"In another three years," said some one else at the table, "we +shall be living in ruins. Houses in Moscow were always kept +well warmed. Lack of transport has brought with it lack of +fuel, and water-pipes have burst in thousands of houses. +We cannot get what is needed to mend them. In the same +way we cannot get paints for the walls, which are +accordingly rotting. In another three years we shall have all +the buildings of Moscow tumbling about our ears." + + +Some one else joined in with a laugh: "In ten years we shall +be running about on all fours." + + +"And in twenty we shall begin sprouting tails." + + +Meshtcheriakov finished his soup and laid down his wooden +spoon. + + +"There is another side to all these things," he said. "In +Russia, even if the blockade lasts, we shall get things +established again sooner than anywhere else, because we +have all the raw materials in our own country. With us it is a +question of transport only, and of transport within our own +borders. In a few years, I am convinced, in spite of all +that is working against us, Russia will be a better place to +live in than anywhere else in Europe. But we have a bad +time to go through. And not we alone. The effects of the +war are scarcely visible as yet in the west, but they will +become visible. Humanity has a period of torment before it +. . . ." + + +"Bucharin says fifty years," I said, referring to my talk of +yesterday. + + +"Maybe. I think less than that. But the revolution will be far +worse for you nations of the west than it has been for us. In +the west, if there is revolution, they will use artillery at once, +and wipe out whole districts. The governing classes in the +west are determined and organized in a way our +home-grown capitalists never were. The Autocracy never allowed +them to organize, so, when the Autocracy itself fell, our task +was comparatively easy. There was nothing in the way. It +will not be like that in Germany." + + + + +AN EVENING AT THE OPERA + + + +I read in one of the newspapers that a member of the +American Commission in Berlin reasoned from the fact that +the Germans were crowding to theatres and spectacles that +they could not be hungry. There can be no question about +the hunger of the people of Moscow, but the theatres are +crowded, and there is such demand for seats that speculators +acquire tickets in the legitimate way and sell them illicitly +near the doors of the theatre to people who have not been +able to get in, charging, of course, double the price or even +more. Interest in the theatre, always keen in Moscow, seems +to me to have rather increased than decreased. There is a +School of Theatrical Production, with lectures on every +subject connected with the stage, from stage carpentry +upwards. A Theatrical Bulletin is published three times +weekly, containing the programmes of all the theatres and +occasional articles on theatrical subjects. I had been told +in Stockholm that the Moscow theatres were closed. The +following is an incomplete list of the plays and spectacles to +be seen at various theatres on February 13 and February 14, +copied from the Theatrical Bulletin of those dates. Just as it +would be interesting to know what French audiences +enjoyed at the time of the French revolution, so I think it +worth while to record the character of the entertainments at +present popular in Moscow. + + +Opera at the Great Theatre.--"Sadko" by Rimsky-Korsakov +and "Samson and Delilah" by Saint-Saens. + + +Small State Theatre.--"Besheny Dengi" by Ostrovsky and +"Starik" by Gorky. + + +Moscow Art Theatre.-- "The Cricket on the Hearth" by +Dickens and "The Death of Pazuchin" by Saltykov-Shtchedrin. + + +Opera. "Selo Stepantchiko" and "Coppellia." + + +People's Palace.--"Dubrovsky" by Napravnik and "Demon" +by Rubinstein. + + +Zamoskvoretzky Theatre.--"Groza" by Ostrovsky and +"Meshitchane" by Gorky. + + +Popular Theatre.--" The Miracle of Saint, Anthony" by +Maeterlinck. + + +Komissarzhevskaya Theatre.--"A Christmas Carol" by +Dickens and "The Accursed Prince" by Remizov. + + +Korsh Theatre.--"Much Ado about Nothing" by +Shakespeare and "Le Misanthrope" and "Georges Dandin" +by Moli=8Are. + + +Dramatic Theatre.--"Alexander I" by Merezhkovsky. + + +Theatre of Drama and Comedy.-- "Little Dorrit" by Dickens +and "The King's Barber" by Lunacharsky. + + +Besides these, other theatres were playing +K. R. (Konstantin Romanov), Ostrovsky, Potapenko, +Vinitchenko, etc. The two Studios of the Moscow Art +Theatre were playing "Rosmersholm" and a repertoire of +short plays. They, like the Art Theatre Company, +occasionally play in the suburban theatres when their place +at home is taken by other performers. + + +I went to the Great State Theatre to +Saint-Saens' "Samson and Delilah." I had a seat in +the box close above the orchestra, from which I could +obtain a view equally good of the stage and of the house. +Indeed, the view was rather better of the house than of the +stage. But that was as I had wished, for the house was what +I had come to see. + + +It had certainly changed greatly since the +pre-revolutionary period. The Moscow plutocracy of bald +merchants and bejewelled fat wives had gone. Gone with +them were evening dresses and white shirt fronts. The +whole audience was in the monotone of everyday clothes. +The only contrast was given by a small group of Tartar +women in the dress circle, who were shawled in white over +head and shoulders, in the Tartar fashion. There were many +soldiers, and numbers of men who had obviously come +straight from their work. There were a good many grey and +brown woollen jerseys about, and people were sitting in +overcoats of all kinds and ages, for the theatre was very +cold. (This, of course, was due to lack of fuel, which may in +the long run lead to a temporary stoppage of the theatres if +electricity cannot be spared for lighting them.) The orchestra +was also variously dressed. Most of the players of brass +instruments had evidently been in regimental bands +during the war, and still retained their khaki-green tunics +with a very mixed collection of trousers and breeches. +Others were in every kind of everyday clothes. The +conductor alone wore a frock coat, and sat in his place like a +specimen from another age, isolated in fact by his smartness +alike from his ragged orchestra and from the stalls behind +him. + + +I looked carefully to see the sort of people who fill the stalls +under the new regime, and decided that there has been a +general transfer of brains from the gallery to the floor of the +house. The same people who in the old days scraped +kopecks and waited to get a good place near the ceiling now +sat where formerly were the people who came here to digest +their dinners. Looking from face to face that night I thought +there were very few people in the theatre who had had +anything like a good dinner to digest. But, as for their +keenness, I can imagine few audiences to which, from the +actor's point of view, it would be better worth while to play. +Applause, like brains, had come down from the galleries. + + +Of the actual performance I have little to say except that +ragged clothes and empty stomachs seemed to make very +little difference to the orchestra. Helzer, the ballerina, +danced as well before this audience as ever before the +bourgeoisie. As I turned up the collar of my coat I reflected +that the actors deserved all the applause they got for their +heroism in playing in such cold. Now and then during the +evening I was unusually conscious of the unreality of opera +generally, perhaps because of the contrast in magnificence +between the stage and the shabby, intelligent audience. Now +and then, on the other hand, stage and audience seemed one +and indivisible. For "Samson and Delilah" is itself a poem +of revolution, and gained enormously by being played by +people every one of whom had seen something of the sort in +real life. Samson's stirring up of the Israelites reminded me +of many scenes in Petrograd in 1917, and when, at last, he +brings the temple down in ruins on his triumphant enemies, I +was reminded of the words attributed to Trotsky:- "If we +are, in the end, forced to go, we shall slam the door behind +us in such away that the echo shall be felt throughout the +world." + + +Going home afterwards through the snow, I did not see +a single armed man. A year ago the streets were deserted +after ten in the evening except by those who, like myself, +had work which took them to meetings and such things late +at night. They used to be empty except for the military +pickets round their log-fires. Now they were full of +foot-passengers going home from the theatres, utterly +forgetful of the fact that only twelve months before they had +thought the streets of Moscow unsafe after dark. There +could be no question about it. The revolution is settling +down, and people now think of other matters than the old +question, will it last one week or two? + + + + +THE COMMITTEE OF STATE CONSTRUCTIONS + + + +February 15th. + + +I went by appointment to see Pavlovitch, President of the +Committee of State Constructions. It was a very jolly +morning and the streets were crowded. As I walked through +the gate into the Red Square I saw the usual crowd of +peasant women at the little chapel of the Iberian Virgin, +where there was a blaze of candles. On the wall of what +used, I think, to be the old town hall, close by the gate, some +fanatic agnostic has set a white inscription on a tablet, +"Religion is opium for the People." The tablet, which has +been there a long time, is in shape not unlike the customary +frame for a sacred picture. I saw an old peasant, evidently +unable to read, cross himself solemnly before the chapel, +and then, turning to the left, cross himself as solemnly +before this anti-religious inscription. It is perhaps +worth while to remark in passing that the new Communist +programme, while insisting, as before, on the definite +separation of church and state, and church and school, now +includes the particular statement that "care should be taken +in no way to hurt the feelings of the religious." Churches and +chapels are open, church processions take place as before, +and Moscow, as in the old days, is still a city of church bells. + + +A long line of sledges with welcome bags of flour was +passing through the square. Soldiers of the Red Army were +coming off parade, laughing and talking, and very noticeably +smarter than the men of six months ago. There was a bright +clear sky behind the fantastic Cathedral of St. Basil, and the +rough graves under the Kremlin wall, where those are buried +who died in the fighting at the time of the November +Revolution, have been tidied up. There was +scaffolding round the gate of the Kremlin which was +damaged at that time and is being carefully repaired. + +The Committee of State Constructions was founded last +spring to coordinate the management of the various +engineering and other constructive works previously +carried on by independent departments. It became an +independent organ with its own finances about the middle of +the summer. Its headquarters are in the Nikolskaya, in the +Chinese town, next door to the old building of the +Anglo-Russian Trading Company, which still bears the Lion +and the Unicorn sculptured above its green and white fa=87ade +some time early in the seventeenth century. + + +Pavlovitch is a little, fat, spectacled man with a bald head, +fringed with the remains of red hair, and a little reddish +beard. He was dressed in a black leather coat and trousers. +He complained bitterly that all his plans for engineering +works to improve the productive possibilities of the country +were made impracticable by the imperious demands of war. +As an old Siberian exile he had been living in France before +the revolution and, as he said, had seen there how France +made war. "They sent her locomotives, and rails for the +locomotives to run on, everything she needed they sent her +from all parts of the world. When they sent horses, they +sent also hay for their food, and shoes for their feet, and +even nails for the shoes. If we were supplied like that, +Russia would be at peace in a week. But we have nothing, +and can get nothing, and are forced to be at war against our +will. + +"And war spoils everything," he continued. "This committee +should be at work on affairs of peace, making Russia more +useful to herself and to the rest of the world. You know our +plans. But with fighting on all our fronts, and with all our +best men away, we are compelled to use ninety per cent. of +our energy and material for the immediate needs of the +army. Every day we get masses of telegrams from all fronts, +asking for this or that. For example, Trotsky telegraphs here +simply "We shall be in Orenburg in two days," leaving us to +do what is necessary. Then with the map before me, I have +to send what will be needed, no matter what useful work has +to be abandoned meanwhile, engineers, railway gangs for +putting right the railways, material for bridges, and so on. + + +"Indeed, the biggest piece of civil engineering done in Russia +for many years was the direct result of our fear lest you +people or the Germans should take our Baltic fleet. Save +the dreadnoughts we could not, but I decided to save what +we could. The widening and deepening of the canal system +so as to shift boats from the Baltic to the Volga had been +considered in the time of the Tzar. It was considered and +dismissed as impracticable. Once, indeed, they did try to +take two torpedo-boats over, and they lifted them on barges +to make the attempt. Well, we said that as the thing could +be planned, it could be done, and the canals are deepened +and widened, and we took through them, under their own +power, seven big destroyers, six small destroyers and four +submarine boats, which, arriving unexpectedly before +Kazan, played a great part in our victory there. But the +pleasure of that was spoilt for me by the knowledge that I +had had to take men and material from the building of the +electric power station, with which we hope to make +Petrograd independent of the coal supply. + + +"The difficulties we have to fight against are, of course, +enormous, but much of what the old regime failed to do, for +want of initiative or for other reasons, we have done and are +doing. Some of the difficulties are of a most +unexpected kind. The local inhabitants, partly, no doubt, +under the influence of our political opponents, were +extremely hostile with regard to the building of the power +station, simply because they did not understand it. I went +there myself, and explained to them what it would mean, +that their river would become a rich river, that they would be +able to get cheap power for all sorts of works, and that they +would have electric light in all their houses. Then they +carried me shoulder high through the village, and sent +telegrams to Lenin, to Zinoviev, to everybody they could +think of, and since then we have had nothing but help from +them. + + +"Most of our energy at present has to be spent on mending +and making railways and roads for the use of the army. +Over 11,000 versts of railway are under construction, and +we have finished the railway from Arzamas to Shikhran. +Twelve hundred versts of highroad are under construction. +And to meet the immediate needs of the army we have +already repaired or made 8,000 versts of roads of various +kinds. As a matter of fact the internal railway net of +Russia is by no means as bad as people make out. By its +means, hampered as we are, we have been able to beat the +counter-revolutionaries, concentrating our best troops, now +here, now there, wherever need may be. Remember that the +whole way round our enormous frontiers we are being +forced to fight groups of reactionaries supported at first +mostly by the Germans, now mostly by yourselves, by the +Roumanians, by the Poles, and in some districts by the +Germans still. Troops fighting on the Ural front are fighting +a month later south of Voronezh, and a month later again +are having a holiday, marching on the heels of the Germans +as they evacuate the occupied provinces. Some of our +troops are not yet much good. One day they fight, and the +next they think they would rather not. So that our best +troops, those in which there are most workmen, have to be +flung in all directions. We are at work all the time enabling +this to be done, and making new roads to enable it to be +done still better. But what waste, when there are so many +other things we want to do! + + +"All the time the needs of war are pressing on +us. To-day is the first day for two months that +we have been able to warm this building. We have +been working here in overcoats and fur hats in a +temperature below freezing point. Why? Wood +was already on its way to us, when we had suddenly +to throw troops northwards. Our wood had to be +flung out of the wagons, and the Red Army put in its place, +and the wagons sent north again. The thing had to be done, +and we have had to work as best we could in the cold. +Many of my assistants have fallen ill. Two only yesterday +had to be taken home in a condition something like that of a +fit, the result of prolonged sedentary work in unheated +rooms. I have lost the use of my right hand for the same +reason." He stretched out his right hand, which he had been +keeping in the pocket of his coat. It was an ugly sight, with +swollen, immovable fingers, like the roots of a vegetable. + + +At this moment some one came in to speak to Pavlovitch. +He stood at the table a little behind me, so that I did not see +him, but Pavlovitch, noticing that he looked curiously at me, +said, "Are you acquaintances?" I looked round and +saw Sukhanov, Gorky's friend, formerly one of the +cleverest writers on the Novaya Jizn. I jumped up and +shook hands with him. + + +"What, have you gone over to the Bolsheviks?" I asked. + +"Not at all," said Sukhanov, smiling, "but I am working +here." + + +"Sukhanov thinks that we do less harm than anybody else," +said Pavlovitch, and laughed. "Go and talk to him and he'll +tell you all there is to be said against us. And there's lots to +say." + + +Sukhanov was an extremely bitter enemy of the Bolsheviks, +and was very angry with me when, over a year ago, I told +him I was convinced that sooner or later he would be +working with them. I told Pavlovitch the story, and he +laughed again. "A long time ago," he said, "Sukhanov made +overtures to me through Miliutin. I agreed, and everything +was settled, but when a note appeared in Pravda to say that +he was going to work in this Committee, he grew shy, and +wrote a contradiction. Miliutin was very angry and asked +me to publish the truth. I refused, but wrote on that day in +my diary, Sukhanov will come. Three months later he +was already working with us. One day he told me that in the +big diary of the revolution which he is writing, and will write +very well, he had some special abuse for me. 'I have none +for you,' I said, 'but I will show you one page of my own +diary,' and I showed him that page, and asked him to look at +the date. Sukhanov is an honest fellow, and was bound to +come." + + +He went on with his talk. + + +"You know, hampered as we are by lack of everything, we +could not put up the fight we are putting up against the +reactionaries if it were not for the real revolutionary spirit of +the people as a whole. The reactionaries have money, +munitions, supplies of all kinds, instructors, from outside. +We have nothing, and yet we beat them. Do you know that +the English have given them tanks? Have you heard that in +one place they used gases or something of the kind, and +blinded eight hundred men? And yet we win. Why? +Because from every town we capture we get new strength. +And any town they take is a source of weakness to them, +one more town to garrison and hold against the wishes +of the population." + + +"And if you do get peace, what then!" + + +"We want from abroad all that we cannot make ourselves. +We want a hundred thousand versts of rails. Now we have +to take up rails in one place to lay them in another. We want +new railways built. We want dredgers for our canals and +river works. We want excavators." + + +"And how do you expect people to sell you these things +when your foreign credit is not worth a farthing?" + + +"We shall pay in concessions, giving foreigners the right to +take raw materials. Timber, actual timber, is as good as +credit. We have huge areas of forest in the north, and every +country in Europe needs timber. Let that be our currency +for foreign purchases. We are prepared to say, 'You build +this, or give us that, and we will give you the right to take so +much timber for yourselves.' And so on. And concessions +of other kinds also. As a matter of fact negotiations are now +proceeding with a foreign firm for the building of a railway +from the Obi to Kotlas." + + +"But part of that district is not in your hands. + + +"If we get peace we shall be able to arrange that without difficulty." + + +Just as I was going he stopped me, and evidently not in the +least realizing that English people generally have come to +think of him and his friends as of some strange sort of +devils, if not with horns and tails, certainly far removed from +human beings, he asked:-- + + +"If we do get peace, don't you think there will be engineers +and skilled labourers in England who will volunteer to come +out to Russia and help us? There is so much to do that I can +promise they will have the best we can give them. We are +almost as short of skilled men as we are of locomotives. We +are now taking simple unskilled workmen who show any +signs of brains and training them as we go along. There +must be engineers, railwaymen, mechanics among English +socialists who would be glad to come. And of course they +need not be socialists, so long as they are good engineers." + + +That last suggestion of his is entirely characteristic. It is +impossible to make the Bolsheviks realize that the English +people feel any hostility towards them. Nor do they feel +hostility towards the English as such. On my way back +to the hotel I met a party of English soldiers, taken prisoners +on the northern front, walking free, without a convoy, +through the streets. + + + + + +THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE AND THE TERROR + + + +February 17th. + + +My general impression that the Soviet revolution has passed +through its period of internal struggle and is concentrating +upon constructive work so far as that is allowed by war on +all its frontiers, and that the population is settling down +under the new regime, was confirmed by the meeting of the +Executive Committee which definitely limited the powers of +the Extraordinary Commission. Before the sitting was +opened I had a few words with Peters and with Krylenko. +The excitement of the internal struggle was over. It had +been bitterly fought within the party, and both Krylenko of +the Revolutionary Tribunal and Peters of the Extraordinary +Commission were there merely to witness the official act that +would define their new position. Peters talked of his failure +to get away for some shooting; Krylenko jeered at me +for having refused to believe in the Lockhart conspiracy. +Neither showed any traces of the bitter struggle waged +within the party for and against the almost dictatorial powers +of the Extraordinary Commission for dealing with counter-revolution. + + +The sitting opened with a report by Dserzhinsky, that strange +ascetic who, when in prison in Warsaw, insisted on doing +the dirty work of emptying the slops and cleaning other +people's cells besides his own, on a theory that one man +should where possible take upon himself the evil which +would otherwise have to be shared by all; and in the +dangerous beginning of the revolution had taken upon +himself the most unpopular of all posts, that of President of +the Extraordinary Commission. His personal uprightness is +the complement of an absolute personal courage, shown +again and again during the last eighteen months. At the time +of the Left Social Revolutionary mutiny he went without a +guard to the headquarters of the mutineers, believing that he +could bring them to reason, and when arrested by them +dared them to shoot him and showed so bold a front that in +the end the soldiers set to watch him set him free and +returned to their allegiance. This thin, tallish man, with a +fanatic face not unlike some of the traditional portraits of St. +Francis, the terror of counter-revolutionaries and criminals +alike, is a very bad speaker. He looks into the air over the +heads of his audience and talks as if he were not addressing +them at all but some one else unseen. He talks even of a +subject which he knows perfectly with curious inability to +form his sentences; stops, changes words, and often, +recognizing that he cannot finish his sentence, ends where +he is, in the middle of it, with a little odd, deprecating +emphasis, as if to say: "At this point there is a full stop. At +least so it seems." + + +He gave a short colourless sketch of the history of the +Extraordinary Commission. He referred to the various crises +with which it had had to deal, beginning with the drunken +pogroms in Petrograd, the suppression of the combined +anarchists and criminals in Moscow (he mentioned that after +that four hours' struggle which ended in the clearing out of +the anarchists' strongholds, criminality in Moscow +decreased by 80 per cent.), to the days of the Terror when, +now here, now there, armed risings against the Soviet were +engineered by foreigners and by counter-revolutionaries +working with them. He then made the point that +throughout all this time the revolution had +been threatened by large-scale revolts. Now the revolution +was safe from such things and was threatened only by +individual treacheries of various kinds, not by things which +needed action on a large scale. They had traitors, no doubt, +in the Soviet institutions who were waiting for the day +(which would never come) to join with their enemies, and +meanwhile were secretly hampering their work. They did +not need on that account to destroy their institutions as a +whole. The struggle with counter-revolution had passed to +a new stage. They no longer had to do open battle with +open enemies; they had merely to guard themselves against +individuals. The laws of war by which, meeting him on the +field of battle, the soldier had a right to kill his enemy +without trial, no longer held good. The situation was now +that of peace, where each offender must have his guilt +proved before a court. Therefore the right of +sentencing was removed from the Extraordinary +Commission; but if, through unforeseen circumstances, the +old conditions should return, they intended that the +dictatorial powers of the Commission should be restored to it +until those conditions had ceased. Thus if, in case of armed +counter-revolution, a district were declared to be in a state +of war, the Extraordinary Commission would resume its old +powers. Otherwise its business would be to hand offenders, +such as Soviet officials who were habitually late (here there +was a laugh, the only sign throughout his speech that +Dserzhinsky was holding the attention of his audience), over +to the Revolutionary Tribunal, which would try them and, +should their guilt be proved, put them in concentration +camps to learn to work. He read point by point the +resolutions establishing these, changes and providing for the +formation of Revolutionary Tribunals. Trial to take place +within forty-eight hours after the conclusion of the +investigation, and the investigation to take not longer than a +month. He ended as he ended his sentences, as if by +accident, and people scarcely realized he had finished +before Sverdlov announced the next speaker. + + +Krylenko proposed an amendment to ensure that no member +of the Revolutionary Tribunal could be also a member of the +Extraordinary Commission which had taken up and +investigated a case. His speech was very disappointing. He +is not at his best when addressing a serious meeting like that +of the Executive Committee. The Krylenko who spoke +to-night, fluently, clearly, but without particular art, is a very +different Krylenko from the virtuoso in mob oratory, the +little, dangerous, elderly man in ensign's uniform who +swayed the soldiers' mass meetings in Petrograd a year and a +half ago. I remember hearing him speak in barracks soon +after the murder of Shingarev and Kokoshkin, urging class +struggle and at the same time explaining the difference +between that and the murder of sick men in bed. He +referred to the murder and, while continuing his speech, +talking already of another subject, be went through the +actions of a man approaching a bed and killing a sleeper +with a pistol. It was a trick, of course, but the thrilling, +horrible effect of it moved the whole audience with a +shudder of disgust. There was nothing of this kind in his +short lecture on jurisprudence +to-night. + + +Avanesov, the tall, dark secretary of the Executive +Committee, with the face of a big, benevolent hawk hooded +in long black hair, opposed Krylenko on the ground that +there were not enough trustworthy workers to ensure that in +country districts such a provision could be carried out. +Finally the resolution was passed as a whole and the +amendment was referred to the judgment of the presidium. + + +The Committee next passed to the consideration of the +Extraordinary Tax levied on the propertied classes. +Krestinsky, Commissary of Finance, made his report to a +grim audience, many of whom quite frankly regarded the tax +as a political mistake. Krestinsky is a short, humorous man, +in dark spectacles, dressed more like a banker than like a +Bolshevik. It was clear that the collection of the tax had not +been as successful as he had previously suggested. I was +interested in his reference to the double purpose of the tax +and in the reasons he gave for its comparative failure. +The tax had a fiscal purpose, partly to cover deficit, +partly by drawing in paper money to raise the value of the +rouble. It had also a political purpose. It was intended to +affect the propertied classes only, and thus to weaken the +Kulaks (hard-fists, rich peasants) in the villages and to teach the +poorer peasants the meaning of the revolution. +Unfortunately some Soviets, where the minority of the +Kulaks had retained the unfair domination given it by its +economic strength, had distributed the tax-paying equally +over the whole population, thus very naturally raising the +resentment of the poor who found themselves taxed to the +same amount as those who could afford to pay. It had been +necessary to send circular telegrams emphasizing the terms +of the decree. In cases where the taxation had been carried +out as intended there had been no difficulty. The most +significant reason for the partial unsuccess was that the +propertied class, as such, had already diminished to a greater +extent than had been supposed, and many of those taxed, for +example, as factory owners were already working, not as +factory owners, but as paid directors in nationalized +factories, and were therefore no longer subject to the +tax. In other words, the partial failure of the tax was a proof +of the successful development of the revolution. (This is +illustrated by the concrete case of "Uncle" +recorded on p. 73.) Krestinsky believed that the revolution +had gone so far that no further tax of , this kind would be +either possible or necessary. + + + + +NOTES OF CONVERSATIONS WITH LENIN + + + +Whatever else they may think of him, not even his enemies +deny that Vladimir Ilyitch Oulianov (Lenin) is one of the +greatest personalities of his time. I therefore make no +apology for writing down such scraps of his conversation as +seem to illustrate his manner of mind. + + +He was talking of the lack of thinkers in the English labour +movement, and said he remembered hearing Shaw speak at +some meeting. Shaw, he said, was "A good man fallen +among Fabians" and a great deal further left than his +company. He had not heard of "The Perfect Wagnerite," +but was interested when I told him the general idea of the +book, and turned fiercely on an interrupter who said that +Shaw was a clown. "He may be a clown for the bourgeoisie +in a bourgeois state, but they would not think him a clown in +a revolution." + + +He asked whether Sidney Webb was consciously +working in the interests of the capitalists, and when I said I +was quite sure that he was not, he said, "Then he has more +industry than brains. He certainly has great knowledge." + + +He was entirely convinced that England was on the eve of +revolution, and pooh-poohed my objections. "Three +months ago I thought it would end in all the world having to +fight the centre of reaction in England. But I do not think so +now. Things have gone further there than in France, if the +news as to the extent of the strikes is true." + + +I pointed out some of the circumstances, geographical and +economical, which would make the success of a violent +revolution in England problematical in the extreme, and put +to him the same suggestion that I put to Bucharin (see page +81), namely, that a suppressed movement in England would +be worse for Russia than our traditional method of +compromise. He agreed at once, but said, "That is quite +true, but you cannot stop a revolution . . . although Ramsay +MacDonald will try to at the last minute. Strikes and +Soviets. If these two habits once get hold, nothing will +keep the workmen from them. And Soviets, once started, +must sooner or later come to supreme power." Then, "But +certainly it would be much more difficult in England. Your +big clerk and shop-keeping class would oppose it, until the +workmen broke them. Russia was indeed the only country +in which the revolution could start. And we are not yet +through our troubles with the peasantry." + + +I suggested that one reason why it had been possible in +Russia was that they had had room to retreat. + + +"Yes," he said. "The distances saved us. The Germans +were frightened of them, at the time when they could indeed +have eaten us up, and won peace, which the Allies would +have given them in gratitude for our destruction. A +revolution in England would have nowhere whither to +retire." + + +Of the Soviets he said, "In the beginning I thought they were +and would remain a purely Russian form; but it is now quite +clear that under various names they must be the instruments +of revolution everywhere." + + +He expressed the opinion that in England they would +not allow me to tell the truth about Russia, and gave as an +example the way in which Colonel Robins had been kept +silent in America. He asked about Robins, "Had he really +been as friendly to the Soviet Government as he made out?" +I said, "Yes, if only as a sportsman admiring its pluck and +courage in difficulties." I quoted Robins' saying, "I can't go +against a baby I have sat up with for six months. But if +there were a Bolshevik movement in America I'd be out with +my rifle to fight it every time." "Now that," said Lenin, "is +an honest man and more far-seeing than most. I always +liked that man." He shook with laughter at the image of the +baby, and said, "That baby had several million other folk +sitting up with it too." + + +He said he had read in an English socialist paper a +comparison of his own theories with those of an American, +Daniel De Leon. He had then borrowed some of De Leon's +pamphlets from Reinstein (who belongs to the party which +De Leon founded in America), read them for the first time, +and was amazed to see how far and how early De Leon +had pursued the same train of thought as the Russians. +His theory that representation should be by industries, +not by areas, was already the germ of the Soviet system. +He remembered seeing De Leon at an International Conference. +De Leon made no impression at all, a grey old man, +quite unable to speak to such an audience: but evidently +a much bigger man than he looked, since his pamphlets +were written before the experience of the Russian +Revolution of 1905. Some days afterwards I noticed that +Lenin had introduced a few phrases of De Leon, as if to do +honour to his memory, into the draft for the new programme +of the Communist party. + + +Talking of the lies that are told about Russia, he said it was +interesting to notice that they were mostly perversions of +truth and not pure inventions, and gave as an example the +recent story that he had recanted. "Do you know the origin +of that?" he said. "I was wishing a happy New Year to a +friend over the telephone, and said 'And may we commit +fewer stupidities this year than last!' Some one overheard it +and told some one else. A newspaper announced Lenin +says we are committing stupidities' and so the story started." + + +More than ever, Lenin struck me as a happy man. Walking +home from the Kremlin, I tried to think of any other man of +his calibre who had had a similar joyous temperament. I +could think of none. This little, bald-headed, wrinkled +man, who tilts his chair this way and that, laughing over one +thing or another, ready any minute to give serious advice to +any who interrupt him to ask for it, advice so well reasoned +that it is to his followers far more compelling than any +command, every one of his wrinkles is a wrinkle of laughter, +not of worry. I think the reason must be that he is the first +great leader who utterly discounts the value of his own +personality. He is quite without personal ambition. More +than that, he believes, as a Marxist, in the movement of the +masses which, with or without him, would still move. His +whole faith is in the elemental forces that move people, his +faith in himself is merely his belief that be justly estimates +the direction of those forces. He does not believe that any +man could make or stop the revolution which he thinks inevitable. +If the Russian revolution fails, according to him, it fails only +temporarily, and because of forces beyond any man's +control. He is consequently free with a freedom no other +great man has ever had. It is not so much what he says that +inspires confidence in him. It is this sensible freedom, this +obvious detachment. With his philosophy he cannot for a +moment believe that one man's mistake might ruin all. He is, +for himself at any rate, the exponent, not the cause, of the +events that will be for ever linked with his name. + + + + + + + + +THE SUPREME COUNCIL OF PUBLIC ECONOMY + + + +February 20th. + + +To-day was an unlucky day. I felt tired, ill and hungry, and +had arranged to talk with both Rykov, the President of the +Supreme Council of People's Economy, and Krestinsky, the +Commissar of Finance, at such awkward times that I got no +tea and could get nothing to eat until after four o'clock. Two +such talks on an empty stomach (for the day before I had +had only a plate of soup and a little scrap of fish) were a +little too much for me, and I fear I did not gather as much +information as I should have collected under better +conditions. + + +I had a jolly drive, early in the morning, through the Chinese +Town, and out by the gate in the old wall, up Myasnitzkaya +Street, and round to the right to a building that used to +be the Grand Hotel of Siberia, a loathsome place where +I once stayed. Here in the old days provincial merchants put +up, who did not mind high prices and a superfluity of bugs. +It has now been turned into a hive of office work, and is the +headquarters of the Supreme Council of Public Economy, +which, controlling production and distribution alike, is the +centre of the constructive work going on throughout the +country. + + +This Council, the theorists tell me, is intended to become the +central organization of the state. The Soviets will naturally +become less and less important as instruments of political +transition as that transition is completed and the struggle +against reaction within and without comes to an end. Then +the chief business of the state will no longer be to protect +itself against enemies but to develop its economic life, to +increase its productivity and to improve the material +conditions of the workers of whom it is composed. All these +tasks are those of the Supreme Council of Public Economy, +and as the bitterness of the struggle dies away this body, +which came into being almost unnoticed in the din of battle, +will become more and more important in comparison +with the Soviets, which were in origin not constructive +organizations but the instruments of a revolution, the hardest +stages of which have already been accomplished. + + +It is perhaps worth while to set out here the constitution of +this Council. It is considered at present as the economic +department of the All-Russian Central Executive +Committee, to which, and to the Council of People's +Commissaries, it is responsible. It regulates all production +and distribution. It reports on the various estimates of the +state budget and, in conjunction with the Commissariats of +Finance and State Control, carries out the financing of all +branches of public economy. It consists of 69 members, and +is composed as follows:--Ten representatives from the +All-Russian Executive Committee, thirty from the +All-Russian Industrial Productive Union (a union of Trade +Unions), twenty from the ten District Councils of Public +Economy, two from the All-Russian Council of Workers' +Cooperative Societies, and one representative each from the +Commissariats of Supply, Ways of Communication, +Labour, Agriculture, Finance, Trade +and Industry, and Internal Affairs. It meets as a whole at +least once in every month. The work of its members is +directed by a Presidium of nine members, of which it elects +eight, the President being elected by the All-Russian Central +Executive Committee, and enjoying the rank of a People's +Commissar or Minister. + + +I had a long talk with Rykov, the President, or rather listened +to a long lecture by him, only now and then succeeding in +stopping him by forcing a question into the thread of his +harangue. He stammers a little, and talks so indistinctly that +for the first time (No. The first time was when Chicherin +gabbled through the provisions of the Brest Treaty at the +fourth All-Russian Assembly.) I felt willing to forgive +normal Russians, who nearly always talk as if they were in +Petrograd and their listener in Vladivostok. + + +Part of what he said is embodied in what I have already +written. But besides sketching the general aims of the +Council, Rykov talked of the present economic position of +Russia. At the moment Russian industry was in peculiar +difficulties owing to the fuel crisis. This was partly due +to the fact that the Czechs and the Reactionaries, who had +used the Czechs to screen their own organization, had +control of the coalfields in the Urals, and partly to the fact +that the German occupation of the Ukraine and the activities +of Krasnov had cut off Soviet Russia from the Donetz coal +basin, which had been a main source of supply, although in +the old days Petrograd had also got coal from England. It +was now, however, clear that, with a friendly Ukraine, they +would have the use of the Donetz basin much sooner than +they had expected. + + +The Brest peace and the deprivations it involved had made +them consider the position of the industrial districts from a +new standpoint, and they were determined to make +Petrograd and Moscow as far as possible independent of all +fuel which had to be brought from a distance. He referred +to the works in progress for utilizing water power to provide +electrical energy for the Petrograd factories, and said that +similar electrification, on a basis of turf fuel, is planned for +Moscow. + + +I asked how they were going to get the machines. He +said that of course they would prefer to buy them abroad, +but that, though this was impossible, the work would not be +delayed on that account, since they could make a start with +the machines they had. Turbines for the Petrograd works +they still hoped to obtain from abroad when peace had been +arranged. If the worst came to the worst he thought they +could make their own. "That is one unexpected result of +Russia's long isolation. Her dependence on imports from +abroad is lessening." He gave an example in salt, the urgent +need of which has led to the opening of a new industry, +whose resources are such as to enable Russia not only to +supply herself with salt, but the rest of the world as well if +need should be. + + +I asked what were their immediate plans with regard to the +electrification of Moscow. He said that there was no water +power near Moscow but big turf deposits which would be +used as fuel. In order not to interfere with the actual lighting +of the town from the power-station already in existence, +they are taking the electric plant from the Provodnik works, +which will supply enough electricity for the lighting of the town. +As soon as that is set up and working, they will use it for the immediate +needs of Moscow, and set about transferring the existing +power-station to the new situation near the turf beds. In +this way they hope to carry out the change from coal to turf +without interfering with the ordinary life of the town. +Eventually when things settle down they will get a larger +plant. + + +I said, "Of course you have a double object in this, not only +to lessen the dependence of the industrial districts on fuel +that has to be brought from a distance, and of which you +may be deprived, but also to lessen the strain on transport!" + + +"Yes," he said. "Indeed at the present moment the latter is +our greatest difficulty, hampering everything we would wish +to do. And transport we cannot put right without help from +abroad. Therefore we do everything we can to use local +resources, and are even developing the coal deposits near +Moscow, which are of inferior quality to the Donetz coal, +and were in the old days purposely smothered by the Donetz +coal-owners, who wished to preserve their monopoly." + + +I asked him if in his opinion Russia could organize +herself without help from abroad. He said, "I rather think +she will have to. We want steam dredgers, steam +excavators, and locomotives most of all, but we have small +hope of getting them in the immediate future, because the +effects of the war have been so serious in the +disorganization of industry in the western countries that it is +doubtful whether they will be in a position to supply even +their own needs." + + +While we were talking Berg, the secretary, came in. I asked +him how his Soviet matches were progressing, and he said +that the labels were being printed and that the first lot would +soon be ready. They will be distributed on the card system, +and he had calculated that they could sell them at twelve +kopecks a packet. I paid a rouble for a box of ordinary +matches at Bieloostrov, and a rouble and a half here. + + + + +THE RACE WITH RUIN + + + +After leaving Rykov I went to see Krestinsky, the +Commissar of Finance, the curious little optimist whose +report on the Extraordinary Tax I had heard at the last +meeting of the Executive Committee. I found him in the +Ilyinka street, in the Chinese town. I began by telling him +that I did not believe that they meant to pay the loans. He +laughed and gave me precisely the answer I had expected:-- +"Of course we hope there will be a revolution in other +countries, in which case they will repudiate their debts and +forgive us ours. But if that does not happen we know very +well that we shall have to pay, and we are prepared to pay, +and shall be able to pay, in concessions, in raw material +which they need more than they need gold." + + +Then, being myself neither an economist nor a theoretical +socialist, I put before him what had been said to me in +Stockholm by an Englishman who was both one and the +other; namely, that, being isolated from European finance, +the Soviet Government of Russia was bound to come to an +end on economic and financial grounds alone. + + +He said: "That would certainly be so, if rising prices, rising +wages, were to mean indefinitely increased demands on the +printing machines for paper money. But, while we are at +present forced to print more and more money, another +process is at work which, in the long run, will bring this state +of things to an end. Just as in our dealings with other +countries we exchange goods instead of paying in money, so +within our own frontiers money is ceasing to be the sole +medium of exchange. Gradually the workmen are coming to +receive more and more in other forms than money. Houses, +for example, lighting and heating are only a beginning. +These things being state monopolies, the task of supplying +the workman's needs without the use of money is +comparatively easy. The chief difficulty is, of course, food +supplies, which depend on our ability to keep up an +exchange of goods with the villages. If we can supply +the villages with manufactured goods, they will supply us +with food. You can fairly say that our ruin or salvation +depends on a race between the decreasing value of money +(with the consequent need for printing notes in ever greater +quantities) and our growing ability to do without money +altogether. That is of course, a broad view, and you must +not for a moment suppose that we expect to do without +money in the immediate future. I am merely showing you +the two opposing tendencies on which our economic fate +depends." + + +I will not set down here what he said about the +Extraordinary Tax, for it was merely a repetition of what I +had heard him say in committee. In connection with it, +however, he admitted that capitalism and profiteering were +hard things to root out, saying that they had great difficulty +in getting at what he called "the new bourgeoisie," namely +the speculators who have made fortunes since the revolution +by selling scarce food products at fantastic prices. It was +difficult to tax them because they carried on their operations +secretly and it was next to impossible to find out who +they were. They did not bank their money, and though +an attempt had been made to get at them through the house +committees, it was found that even these committees were +unable to detect them. They will, however, be made to +disgorge their ill-gotten gains when the measure first proposed by +Sokolnikov last summer is put into practice. This is a +general exchange of new money for old, after which the old +will be declared invalid. "Of course," said Krestinsky, "they +will cheat in every possible way, scattering out the money +among a number of friends and relations. But something +will have been done in cleaning them up, and that process +will be completed by a second exchange of money later on." + + + + +Fifteen milliards of new notes for the first exchange are +already printed, but they think that twenty milliards will be +necessary. + + +I asked if the new money was better looking than the old, if +it looked more like money that was worth having than the +wretched little notes printed by the Provisional Government +and scornfully called "Kerenkies" by the populace. +Krestinsky said he was afraid not, but that the +second and final exchange would be made in notes +which they expected to be permanent. They did not expect +the notes of the first exchange to circulate abroad, but the +notes of the second would carry with them state obligation +and they expected them to go into general currency. He +added, smiling that the words "Proletariat of all lands, unite," +were to appear on the notes in eight languages. The +question of the look of the notes, of their ability to inspire +confidence by their mere appearance, is of real importance +in a country where so many of the peasantry will judge their +value by nothing else. + + +I reminded him of the hostility roused in some villages by +mistakes in the assessment and collecting of the +Extraordinary Tax, mistakes which (so other Communists +had assured me) would cost them more, politically, than the +tax was worth to them, and asked him, "Will you not have +great difficulty in getting the exchange made, and are you +not running the risk of providing the reactionaries with a +new profitable basis of agitation?" + + +He said that of course they would not make the attempt +unless they felt sure they were politically strong enough +to carry it through. "If it is properly explained to the villages +there will be nothing to fear, because the measure will not +threaten any but the rich and therefore the small minority of +the peasantry. It would be a different matter if the same +thing were to be tried by the counter-revolutionaries, +because they would not discriminate in favour of the poor. +If Kolchak and Company overthrow us and try to substitute +their money for ours, their action would affect rich and poor +alike, minority and majority together. If there were not a +hundred other causes guaranteeing the insecurity of their +position, the fact that they will be unable to get rid of our +money without rousing the most violent opposition in the +masses throughout the country would alone be sufficient to +do it." + + +I asked whether that was the reason why they intended to +print on the notes "Proletariat of all lands, unite," so that the +counter-revolutionaries, unable to tolerate money bearing +that hated phrase, should be forced to a step disastrous for +themselves. + + +He laughed, and said that he did not think +counter-revolution in the least likely unless brought +in by invasion, which he did not think politically possible. + + + + +A PLAY OF CHEKHOV + + + +February 21st. + + +I saw Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya" acted by the cast of the Art +Theatre in the First Studio. This is a little theatre holding +just over 200 people. It was of course full. It was curious to +see how complete the revolution had been in a social sense. +It was impossible to tell to what class in pre-revolutionary +days any particular member of the audience had belonged. I +was struck by the new smartness of the boy officers of the +Red Army, of whom a fair number were present. As we +waited for the curtain to rise, I thought how the mental +attitude of the people had changed. A year ago, we lived +with exhilaration or despair on a volcano which might any +day erupt and sweep away the new life before any one had +become accustomed to live it. Now the danger to the +revolution was a thousand miles away on the +various fronts. Here, in the centre, the revolution was +an established fact. People had ceased to wonder when it +would end, were settling into their places in the new social +order, and took their pleasures not as if they were plucking +flowers on their way to execution, but in the ordinary routine +of life. + + +The play is well known, a drama of bourgeois society in a +small country place. A poor landowner scraping money for +an elder brother in the town, realizing at last that the brother +was not the genius for whom such sacrifice was worth while; +a doctor with a love for forestry and dreams of the future; +the old mock-genius's young wife; his sister; his adoring +mother; the old nurse and the ancient dependent adopted, as +it were, with the estate; all these people in their own way +make each other suffer. Chekhov's irony places before us +wasted lives, hopelessness, exaggerated interest in +personalities, vain strugglings after some better outlet for the +expression of selves not worth expressing. + + +That play, acted to-day, seemed as remote as a play of the +old regime in France would have seemed five years +ago. A gulf seemed to have passed. The play had become a +play of historical interest; the life it represented had gone for +ever. People in Russia no longer have time for private lives +of such a character. Such people no longer exist; some of +them have been swept into the flood-tide of revolution and +are working as they never hoped to have the chance to work; +others, less generous, have been broken and thrown aside. +The revolution has been hard on some, and has given new +life to others. It has swept away that old life so absolutely +that, come what may, it will be a hundred years at least +before anywhere in Russia people will be able to be unhappy +in that particular way again. + + +The subject of "Uncle Vanya" was a great deal more remote +from the Russian audience of today than was the opera of +"Samson and Delilah" which I heard last week. And, if I +realized that the revolution had come to stay, if I realized +that Chekhov's play had become a play of historical interest, +I realized also that Chekhov was a great master in that his +work carried across the gulf between the old life and the +new, and affected a revolutionary audience of to-day +as strongly as it affected that very different audience of a +few years ago. Indeed, the play seemed almost to have +gained by the revolution, which had lent it, perhaps, more +irony than was in Chekhov's mind as he wrote. Was this the +old life? I thought, as I stepped out into the snow. If so, +then thank God it has gone! + + + + +THE CENTRO-TEXTILE + + + +February 22nd. + + +This morning I drove to the Dielovoi Dvor, the big house on +the Varvarskaya Square which is occupied by the central +organization of the textile industry. The head of this +organization is Nogin, an extremely capable, energetic +Russian, so capable, indeed, that I found it hard to believe +he could really be a Russian. He is a big man, with a mass +of thick brown shaggy hair, so thick that the little bald patch +on the top of his head seems like an artificial tonsure. Nogin +sketched the lines on which the Russian textile industry was +being reorganized, and gave orders that I should be supplied +with all possible printed matter in which to find the details. + + +The "Centro-Textile" is the actual centre of the economic +life of Russia, because, since textiles are the chief +materials of exchange between the towns and the villages, on +its success depends the success of everything else. The +textile industry is, in any case, the most important of all +Russian, industries. Before the war it employed 500,000 +workmen, and Nogin said that in spite of the disorganization +of the war and of the revolution 400,000 are employed to-day. +This may be so in the sense that 400,000 are receiving +pay, but lack of fuel or of raw material must have brought +many factories to a standstill. + + +All the big factories have been nationalized. Formerly, +although in any one town there might be factories carrying +out all the different processes, these factories belonged to +different owners. A single firm or bank might control +factories scattered over Russia and, so that the whole +process should be in its hands, the raw material travelled +from factory to factory through the country, instead of +merely moving about a single town. Thus a roll of material +might have gone through one process at Jaroslav, another at +Moscow, and a third at Tula, and finally come back to +Jaroslav to be finished, simply because the different +factories which worked upon it, though widely scattered, +happened to be under one control. Nationalization has +made possible the rational regrouping of factories so that the +complete process is carried out in one place, consequently +saving transport. There are twenty-three complete groups +of this kind, and in the textile industry generally about fifty +groups in all. + + +There has been a similar concentration of control. In the old +days there were hundreds of different competitive firms with +their buildings and offices in the Ilyinka, the Varvarka, and +the Nikolskaya.* [(*)Streets and a district in Moscow] The +Chinese town* [(*) See above.]was a mass of little offices of +different textile firms. The whole of that mass of struggling +competitive units of direction had now been concentrated in +the house in which we were talking. The control of the +workers had been carried through in such a way that the +technical experts had proper weight. (See p. 171.) There +were periodical conferences of elected representatives of all +the factories, and Nogin believed that the system of +combined elective workmen's and appointed experts' +representation could hardly be improved upon. + + +Nationalization had had the effect of standardizing the +output. Formerly, an infinite variety of slightly different +stuffs were produced, the variations being often merely for +the sake of being different in the competitive trade. Useless +varieties had now been done away with, with the result of +greater economy in production. + + +I asked what he could tell me about their difficulties in the +matter of raw material. He said they no longer get anything +from America, and while the railway was cut at Orenburg by +the Cossacks, they naturally could get no cotton from +Turkestan. In fact, last autumn they had calculated that they +had only enough material to keep the factories going until +December. Now they found they could certainly keep going +to the end of March, and probably longer. Many small +factories, wishing to make their cases out worse than they +were, had under-estimated their stocks. Here, as in other +things, the isolation of the revolution had the effect of +teaching the Russians that they were less dependent upon the +outside world than they had been in the habit of supposing. +He asked me if I knew it had been considered impossible to +combine flax and cotton in such a way that the mixture +could be worked in machines intended for cotton only. +They had an infinite supply of flax, much of which in the +old days had been exported. Investigations carried on for the +Centro-Textile by two professors, the brothers Chilikin, had +ended in the discovery of three different processes for the +cottonizing of flax in such a way that they could now mix +not only a small percentage of their flax with cotton and use +the old machines, but were actually using fifty per cent. flax +and had already produced material experimentally with as +much as seventy-five per cent. + + +(Some days later two young technicians from the +Centro-Textile brought me a neatly prepared set of specimens +illustrating these new processes and asked me to bring them +anything of the same sort from England in return. They +were not Bolsheviks--were, in fact, typical non-politicals. +They were pleased with what the Centro--Textile +was doing, and said that more encouragement was given to +research than ever formerly. But they were very despondent +about the economic position. I could not make them +understand why Russia was isolated, and that I might be +unable to bring them technical books from England.) + + +Nogin rather boastfully said that the western linen industry +would suffer from the isolation of Russia, whereas in the +long run the Russians would be able to do without the rest of +the world. With, regard to wool, they would have no +difficulty now that they were again united with a friendly +Ukraine. The silk industry was to be developed in the +Astrakhan district where climatic conditions are particularly +favourable. + + +I asked about the fate of the old textile manufacturers and +was told that though many had gone abroad many were +working in the nationalized factories. The engineering staff, +which mostly struck work at the beginning of the revolution, +had almost without exception returned, the younger +engineers in particular realizing the new possibilities opening +before the industry, the continual need of new +improvements, and the immediate welcome given to +originality of any kind. Apart from the question of food, +which was bad for everybody, the social standard of the +workers had risen. Thus one of their immediate difficulties +was the provision of proper houses. The capitalists and +manufacturers kept the workers in barracks. "Now-a-days +the men want better dwellings and we mean to give them +better. Some have moved into the old houses of the owners +and manufacturers, but of course there are not enough of +these to go round, and we have extensive plans in the way of +building villages and garden cities for the workmen." + + +I asked Nogin what, in his opinion, was most needed by +Russia from abroad, and he said that as far as the textile +industries were concerned they wanted machinery. Like +every one else to whom I put this question, he said that +every industry in Russia would be in a better position if only +they had more locomotives. "Some of our factories are +stopping now for lack of fuel, and at Saratov, for example, +we have masses of raw material which we are unable to get +to Moscow." + + + + +MODIFICATION IN THE AGRARIAN PROGRAMME + + + +In the afternoon I met Sereda, the Commissar of +Agriculture. He insisted that the agrarian policy had been +much misrepresented by their enemies for the purposes of +agitation. They had no intention of any such idiocy as the +attempt to force the peasants to give up private ownership. +The establishment of communes was not to be compulsory +in any way; it was to be an illustrative means of propaganda +of the idea of communal work, not more. The main task +before them was to raise the standard of Russian agriculture, +which under the old system was extremely low. By working +many of the old estates on a communal system with the best +possible methods they hoped to do two things at once: to +teach the peasant to realize the advantages of communal +labour, and to show him that he could himself get a +very great deal more out of his land than he does. "In +other ways also we are doing everything we can to give +direct help to the small agriculturists. We have mobilized all +the agricultural experts in the country. We are issuing a +mass of simply written pamphlets explaining better methods +of farming." + + +(I have seen scores of these pamphlets on forestry, potatoes, +turf, rotation of crops, and so on, besides the agricultural +journals issued by the Commissariat and sent in large +quantities to the villages.) + + +I told Sereda I had heard that the peasants were refusing to +sow more than they wanted for their own needs. He said +that on the contrary the latest reports gave them the right to +hope for a greater sown area this year than ever before, and +that even more would have been sown if Denmark had not +been prevented from letting them have the seed for which +they had actually paid. I put the same question to him that I +put to Nogin as to what they most needed; he replied, +"Tractors." + + + + +FOREIGN TRADE AND MUNITIONS OF WAR + + + +February 25th. + + +I had a talk in the Metropole with Krasin, who is Commissar +for Trade and Industry and also President of the Committee +for Supplying the Needs of the Army. He had disapproved +of the November Revolution, but last year, when things +looked like going badly, he came to Russia from Stockholm +feeling that he could not do otherwise than help. He is an +elderly man, an engineer, and very much of a European. +We talked first of the Russian plans with regard to foreign +trade. All foreign trade, he said, is now concentrated in the +hands of the State, which is therefore able to deal as a single +customer. I asked how that would apply to purchase, and +whether they expected that countries dealing with them +would organize committees through which the +whole Russian trade of each such country should +similarly pass. Krasin said, "Of course that would be +preferable, but only in the case of socialist countries. As +things are now it would be very much to our disadvantage. +It is better for us to deal with individual capitalists than with +a ring. The formation of a committee in England, for +example, with a monopoly of trade with Russia, would have +the effect of raising prices against us, since we could no +longer go from a dear shop to a cheaper one. Besides, as +socialists we naturally wish to do nothing to help in the +trustification of English manufacturers." + + +He recognized that foreign trade on any large scale was +impossible until their transport had been improved. Russia +proposed to do her paying in raw material, in flax, timber, +etc., in materials of which she had great quantities although +she could not bring them to the ports until her transport +should be restored. It would, therefore, be in the foreigner's +own interests to help them in this matter. He added that +they were confident that in the long run they could, without +foreign help, so far restore their transport as to save +themselves from starvation; but for a speedy return to +normal conditions foreign help was essential. + + +The other question we touched was that of munitions. I +expressed some surprise that they should be able to do so +well although cut off from the west. Krasin said that as far +as that was concerned they had ample munitions for a long +fight. Heavy artillery is not much use for the kind of +warfare waged in Russia; and as for light artillery, they were +making and mending their own. They were not bothering +with three-inch shells because they had found that the old +regime had left scattered about Russia supplies of +three-inch shells sufficient to last them several years. +Dynamite also they had in enormous quantities. They were +manufacturing gunpowder. The cartridge output had trebled +since August when Krasin's committee was formed. He thought +even as things were they could certainly fight for a year. + + + + +THE PROPOSED DELEGATION FROM BERNE + + + +I do not remember the exact date when the proposal of the +Berne International Conference to send a Commission of +Enquiry to Russia became known in Moscow, but on +February 20th everybody who came to see me was talking +about it, and from that date the question as to the reception +of the delegates was the most urgently debated of all political +subjects. Chicherin had replied immediately to Berne, +saying that "though they did not consider the Berne +Conference either socialist or in any degree representative of +the working-class they nevertheless would permit the +Commission's journey into Russia, and would give it every +opportunity of becoming acquainted from all sides with the +state of affairs, just as they would any bourgeois commission +directly or indirectly connected with any of the bourgeois +governments, even with those then attacking Russia." + + +It may well be imagined that a reply in this style infuriated +the Mensheviks who consider themselves more or less +affiliated to the parties represented at Berne. What, they +shrieked, Kautsky not a socialist? To which their opponents +replied, "The Government which Kautsky supports keeps +Radek in irons in a gaol." But to me the most interesting +thing to observe was that Chicherin's reply was scarcely +more satisfactory to some of the Communists. It had been +sent off before any general consultation, and it appeared that +the Communists themselves were widely divided as to the +meaning of the proposal. One party believed that it was a +first step towards agreement and peace. The other thought it +an ingenious ruse by Clemenceau to get +"so-called" socialist condemnation of the Bolsheviks as a +basis for allied intervention. Both parties were, of course, +wrong in so far as they thought the Allied Governments had +anything to do with it. Both the French and English +delegates were refused passports. This, however, was not +known in Moscow until after I left, and by then much had +happened. I think the Conference which founded the +Third International in Moscow had its origin in a desire to +counter any ill effects that might result from the expected +visit of the people of Berne. + + +Litvinov said he considered the sending of the Commission +from Berne the most dangerous weapon yet conceived by +their opponents. He complained that he had been unable to +get either Lenin or Chicherin to realize that this delegation +was a preparation for hostilities, not a preparation for peace. +"You do not understand that since the beginning of the war +there has been a violent struggle between two Internationals, +one of which does not believe in revolution while the other +does. In this case a group of men already committed to +condemn the revolution are coming to pass judgment on it. +If they were not to condemn the revolution they would be +condemning themselves. Chicherin ought to have put a +condition that a delegation of Left Socialists should also +come. But he replied within an hour of getting the telegram +from Berne. These idiots here think the delegation is +coming to seek a ground for peace. It is nothing of the +sort. It is bound to condemn us, and the Bourgeois +Governments will know how to profit by the criticism, +however mild, that is signed by men who still retain authority +as socialists. Henderson, for example (Henderson was at +first named as one of the delegates, later replaced by +MacDonald), will judge simply by whether people are +hungry or not. He will not allow for reasons which are not +in our control. Kautsky is less dangerous, because, after all, +he will look below the obvious." Reinstein remembered the +old personal hostility between Lenin and Kautsky, whom +Lenin, in a book which Reinstein thought unworthy of him, +had roundly denounced as a renegade and traitor. The only +man in the delegation who could be counted on for an +honest effort to understand was Longuet. + + +As the days went on, it became clear that the expected visit +had provided a new bone of contention between the Russian +parties. The Communists decided that the delegates should +not be treated with any particular honour in the way of a +reception. The Mensheviks at once set about preparing +a triumphal reception on a large scale for the people whom +they described as the representatives of genuine socialism. +Demian Biedny retorted in an extremely amusing poetic +dialogue, representing the Mensheviks rehearsing their parts +to be ready for the reception. Other Communists went to +work to prepare a retort of a different kind. They arranged +a house for the Berne delegates to live in, but at the same +time they prepared to emphasize the difference between the +two Internationals by the calling of an anti-Berne +conference which should disclaim all connection with that +old International which they considered had gone into +political bankruptcy at the outbreak of the European war. + + + + + + +THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE ON THE RIVAL PARTIES + + + +February 26th. + + +In the afternoon I got to the Executive Committee in time to +hear the end of a report by Rykov on the economic position. +He said there was hope for a satisfactory conclusion to the +negotiations for the building of the Obi-Kotlas railway, +and hoped that this would soon be followed by similar +negotiations and by other concessions. He explained +that they did not want capitalism in Russia but +that they did want the things that capital could give them in +exchange for what they could give capital. This was, of +course, referring to the opposition criticism that the Soviet +was prepared to sell Russia into the hands of the +"Anglo-American Imperialistic bandits." Rykov said that the main +condition of all concessions would be that they should not +effect the international structure of the Soviet Republic +and should not lead to the exploitation of the workmen. +They wanted railways, locomotives, and machines, and their +country was rich enough to pay for these things out of its +natural resources without sensible loss to the state or the +yielding of an inch in their programme of internal +reconstruction. + + +He was followed by Krestinsky, who pointed out that +whereas the commissariats were, in a sense, altered forms of +the old ministries, links with the past, the Council of Public +Economy, organizing the whole production and distribution +of the country, building the new socialist state, was an +entirely new organ and a link, not with the past, but with the +future. + + +The two next speeches illustrated one of the main difficulties +of the revolution. Krasin (see p. 153) criticized the council +for insufficient confidence in the security of the revolution. +He said they were still hampered by fears lest here or there +capitalism should creep in again. They were unnecessarily +afraid to make the fullest possible use of specialists of all +kinds who had taken a leading part in industry under the old +regime and who, now that the old regime, the old +system, had been definitely broken, could be made to serve +the new. He believed that unless the utmost use was made +of the resources of the country in technical knowledge, etc., +they could not hope to organize the maximum productivity +which alone could save them from catastrophe. + + +The speaker who followed him, Glebov, defended precisely +the opposite point of view and represented the same attitude +with regard to the reorganization of industry as is held by +many who object to Trotsky's use of officers of the old army +in the reorganization of the new, believing that all who +worked in high places under the old regime must be and +remain enemies of the revolution, so that their employment +is a definite source of danger. Glebov is a trade union +representative, and his speech was a clear indication of the +non-political undercurrent towards the left which may shake +the Bolshevik position and will most certainly come into +violent conflict with any definitely bourgeois government +that may be brought in by counter-revolution. + + +In the resolution on the economic position which was +finally passed unanimously, one point reads as follows: "It is +necessary to strive for just economic relations with other +countries in the form of state regulated exchange of goods +and the bringing of the productive forces of other countries +to the working out of the untouched natural resources of +Soviet Russia." It is interesting to notice the curiously mixed +character of the opposition. Some call for "a real socialism," +which shall make no concessions whatsoever to foreign +capital, others for the cessation of civil war and peace with +the little governments which have obtained Allied support. +In a single number of the Printers' Gazette, for example, +there was a threat to appeal against the Bolsheviks to the +delegation from Berne and an attack on Chicherin for being +ready to make terms with the Entente. + + +The next business on the programme was the attitude to be +adopted towards the repentant Social Revolutionaries of the +Right. Kamenev made the best speech I have ever heard +from him, for once in a way not letting himself be drawn +into agitational digressions, but going point by point through +what he had to say and saying it economically. The +S.R.'s had had three watchwords: "War and alliance with the +Allies," "Coalition with the bourgeoisie," and "The +Constituent Assembly." For over a year they had waged +open war with the Soviet Government over these three +points. They had been defeated in the field. But they had +suffered a far more serious moral defeat in having to confess +that their very watchwords had been unsound. "War and +Alliance with the Allies" had shown itself to mean the +occupation of Russian territory by foreign troops in no way +concerned to save the revolution, but ready, as they had +shown, to help every force that was working for its +suppression. "Coalition with the Bourgeoisie" had shown +itself to be a path the natural ending to which was the +dictatorship of the bourgeoisie through military force. "The +Constituent Assembly" had been proved to be no more than +a useful mask behind which the enemies of the revolution +could prepare their forces and trick the masses to their own +undoing. + + +He read the declaration of the Right Social Revolutionaries, +admitting that the Soviet Government was the only force +working against a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, and +calling upon their troops to overthrow the usurping +governments in Siberia, and elsewhere. This repentance, +however, had come rather late and there were those who did +not share it. He said finally that the Executive Committee +must remember that it was not a party considering its +relations with another party, but an organ of government +considering the attitude of the country towards a party which +in the most serious moment of Russian history had +admittedly made grave mistakes and helped Russia's +enemies. Now, in this difficult moment, every one who was +sincerely ready to help the working masses of Russia in their +struggle had the right to be given a place in the ranks of the +fighters. The Social Revolutionaries should be allowed to +prove in deeds the sincerity of their recantation. The +resolution which was passed recapitulated the recantations, +mentioned by name the members of the party with whom +discussions had been carried on, withdrew the decision of +June 14th (excluding the S.R.'s from the Executive +Committee on the ground of their counter-revolutionary +tendencies) with regard to all groups of the party +which held themselves bound by the recently published +declarations, gave them the right equally with other parties +to share in the work of the Soviets, and notified the +administrative and judicial organs of the Republic to free +the arrested S.R.'s who shared the point of view expressed +in the recantations. The resolution was passed without +enthusiasm but without opposition. + + +There followed the reading by Avanesov of the decree +concerning the Menshevik paper Vsegda Vpered ("Forever +Forward," but usually described by critics of the +Mensheviks as "Forever Backward"). The resolution +pointed out that in spite of the Mensheviks having agreed +on the need of supporting the Soviet Government they were +actually carrying on an agitation, the effect of which could +only be to weaken the army. An example was given of an +article, "Stop the Civil War," in which they had pointed out +that the war was costing a great deal, and that much of the +food supplies went to the army. On these grounds they had +demanded the cessation of the civil war. The Committee +pointed out that the Mensheviks were making +demagogic use of the difficulties of the food supply, due in +part to the long isolation from the Ukraine, the Volga +district and Siberia, for which those Mensheviks who had +worked with the White Guard were themselves partly +responsible. They pointed out that Russia was a camp +besieged from all sides, that Kolchak had seized the +important centre of Perm, that Petrograd was threatened +from Finland, that in the streets of Rostov and Novo +Tcherkassk gallows with the bodies of workmen were still +standing, that Denikin was making a destructive raid in the +northern Caucasus, that the Polish legionaries were +working for the seizure of Vilna and the suppression of +Lithuania and the White Russian proletariat, and that in the +ports of the Black Sea the least civilized colonial troops of +the Entente were supporting the White Guards. They +pointed out that the Soviet Government had offered +concessions in order to buy off the imperialistic countries +and had received no reply. Taking all this into +consideration the demand to end civil war amounted to a +demand for the disarming of the working class and the poor +peasantry in the face of bandits and executioners +advancing from all sides. In a word, it was the worst form +of state crime, namely, treason to a state of workers and +peasants. The Committee considered useful every kind of +practical criticism of the work of the Soviet Government in +all departments, but it could not allow that in the rear of the +Red Army of workers and peasants, under that army's +protection, should be carried on unrestrained an agitation +which could have only one result, the weakening of Soviet +Russia in the face of its many enemies. Therefore Vsegda +Vpered would be closed until the Mensheviks should show +in deed that they were ready to stand to the defence and +support of the revolution. At the same time, the Committee +reminded the Mensheviks that a continuation of their +counter-revolutionary work would force the Soviet +Government "to expel them to the territories of Kolchak's +democracy." This conclusion was greeted with laughter and +applause, and with that the meeting ended. + + + + +COMMISSARIAT OF LABOUR + + + +February 28th. + + +This morning I went round to the Commissariat of Labour, +to see Schmidt, the Commissar. Schmidt is a +clean-shaven, intelligent young man, whose attention to business +methods is reflected in his Commissariat, which, unlike that +of Foreign Affairs, is extremely clean and very well +organized. I told him I was particularly interested to hear +what he could say in answer to the accusations made both +by the Mensheviks and by the Extremists on the Left that +control by the workers has become a dead letter, and that a +time will come when the trades unions will move against +the state organizations. + + +Schmidt answered: "Those accusations and suggestions are +all very well for agitational purposes, but the first to laugh +at them would be the trades unions themselves. This +Commissariat, for example, which is the actual labour +centre, is controlled directly by the unions. As Commissar +of Labour, I was elected directly by the General Council of +the Trades Unions. Of the College of nine members which +controls the whole work of the Commissariat, five are +elected directly by the General Council of the Trades +Unions and four appointed by the Council of People's +Commissaries, thus giving the Unions a decisive majority +in all questions concerning labour. All nine are confirmed +by the Council of People's Commissaries, representing the +state as a whole, and the Commissar is confirmed by the +All-Russian Executive Committee." + + +Of course control by the workers, as it was first introduced, +led speedily to many absurdities and, much to the +dissatisfaction of the extremer elements, has been +considerably modified. It was realized that the workers in +any particular factory might by considering only their own +interests harm the community as a whole, and so, in the +long run, themselves. The manner of its modification is an +interesting example of the way in which, without the +influence of tanks, aeroplanes or bayonets, the cruder +ideas of communism are being modified by life. It was +reasoned that since the factory was the property, not of the +particular workmen who work in it, but of the community +as a whole, the community as a whole should have a +considerable voice in its management. And the effect of +that reasoning has been to ensure that the technical +specialist and the expert works manager are no longer at the +caprice of a hastily called gathering of the workmen who +may, without understanding them, happen to disapprove of +some of their dispositions. Thus the economical, +administrative council of a nationalized factory consists of +representatives of the workmen and clerical staff, +representatives of the higher technical and commercial +staffs, the directors of the factory (who are appointed by the +Central Direction of National Factories), representatives of +the local council of trades unions, the Council of Public +Economy, the local soviet, and the industrial union of the +particular industry carried on in the factory, together with, a +representative of the workers' co-operative society and a +representative of the peasants' soviet of the district in +which the factory is situated. In this council not more than +half of the members may be representatives of the workmen +and clerical staff of the factory. This council considers the +internal order of the factory, complaints of any kind, and +the material and moral conditions of work and so on. On +questions of a technical character it has no right to do more +than give advice. + + +The night before I saw Schmidt, little Finberg had come to +my room for a game of chess in a very perturbed state of +mind, having just come from a meeting of the union to +which he belonged (the union of clerks, shop assistants and +civil servants) where there had been a majority against the +Bolsheviks after some fierce criticism over this particular +question. Finberg had said that the ground basis of the +discontent had been the lack of food, but that the outspoken +criticism had taken the form, first, of protests against the +offer of concessions in Chicherin's Note of February 4th, +on the ground that concessions meant concessions to +foreign capitalism and the formation in Russia of capitalist +centres which would eventually spread; and second, that the +Communists themselves, by their modifications of +Workers' Control, were introducing State Capitalism +instead of Socialism. + + +I mentioned this union to Schmidt, and asked him to +explain its hostility. He laughed, and said: "Firstly, that +union is not an industrial union at all, but includes precisely +the people whose interests are not identical with those of +the workmen. Secondly, it includes all the old civil +servants who, as you remember, left the ministries at the +November Revolution, in many cases taking the money +with them. They came back in the end, but though no +longer ready to work openly against the revolution as a +whole, they retain much of their old dislike of us, and, as +you see, the things they were objecting to last night were +precisely the things which do not concern them in +particular. Any other stick would be as good to them. +They know well that if they were to go on strike now they +would be a nuisance to us, no more. If you wish to know +the attitude of the Trades Unions, you should look at the +Trades Union Congress which wholly supported us, and +gave a very different picture of affairs. They know +well that in all questions of labour, the trades unions have +the decisive voice. I told you that the unions send a +majority of the members of the College which controls the +work of this Commissariat. I should have added that the +three most important departments-the department for +safeguarding labour, the department for distributing labour, +and that for regulating wages-are entirely controlled by the +Unions." + + +"How do politics affect the Commissariat?" + + +"Not at all. Politics do not count with us, just because we +are directly controlled by the Unions, and not, by any +political party. Mensheviks, Maximalists and others have +worked and are working in the Commissariat. Of course if +a man were opposed to the revolution as a whole we should +not have him here, because he would be working against us +instead of helping." + + +I asked whether he thought the trade unions would ever +disappear in the Soviet organizations. He thought not. On +the contrary, they had grown steadily throughout the +revolution. He told me that one great change had been +made in them. Trade unions have been merged +together into industrial unions, to prevent conflict +between individual sections of one industry. Thus +boilermakers and smiths do not have separate unions, but +are united in the metal-workers' union. This unification +has its effect on reforms and changes. An increase in +wages, for example, is simultaneous all over Russia. The +price of living varies very considerably in different parts of +the country, there being as great differences between the +climates of different parts as there are between the countries +of Europe. Consequently a uniform absolute increase +would be grossly unfair to some and grossly favourable to +others. The increase is therefore proportional to the cost of +living. Moscow is taken as a norm of 100, and when a new +minimum wage is established for Moscow other districts +increase their minimum wage proportionately. A table for +this has been worked out, whereby in comparison with 100 +for Moscow, Petrograd is set down as 120, Voronezh or +Kursk as 70, and so on. + + +We spoke of the new programme of the Communists, +rough drafts of which were being printed in the newspapers +for discussion, and he showed me his own suggestions +in so far as the programme concerned labour. He wished +the programme to include, among other aims, the further +mechanization of production, particularly the mechanization +of all unpleasant and dirty processes, improved sanitary +inspection, shortening of the working day in employments +harmful to health, forbidding women with child to do any +but very light work, and none at all for eight weeks before +giving birth and for eight weeks afterwards, forbidding +overtime, and so on. "We have already gone far beyond +our old programme, and our new one steps far ahead of us. +Russia is the first country in the world where all workers +have a fortnight's holiday in the year, and workers in +dangerous or unhealthy occupations have a month's." + + +I said, "Yes, but don't you find that there is a very long way +between the passing of a law and its realization?" + + +Schmidt laughed and replied: "In some things certainly, +yes. For example, we are against all overtime, but, in the +present state of Russia we should be sacrificing to a theory +the good of the revolution as a whole if we did not allow +and encourage overtime in transport repairs. Similarly, +until things are further developed than they are now, we +should be criminal slaves to theory if we did not, in some +cases, allow lads under sixteen years old to be in the +factories when we have not yet been able to provide the +necessary schools where we would wish them to be. But +the programme is there, and as fast as it can be realized we +are realizing it." + + + + +EDUCATION + + + +February 28th. + + +At the Commissariat of Public Education I showed +Professor Pokrovsky a copy of The German-Bolshevik +Conspiracy, published in America, containing documents +supposed to prove that the German General Staff arranged +the November Revolution, and that the Bolsheviks were no +more than German agents. The weak point about the +documents is that the most important of them have no +reason for existence except to prove that there was such a +conspiracy. These are the documents bought by Mr. +Sisson. I was interested to see what Pokrovsky would say +of them. He looked through them, and while saying that he +had seen forged documents better done, pointed as evidence +to the third of them which ends with the alleged signatures +of Zalkind, Polivanov, Mekhinoshin and Joffe. He +observed that whoever forged the things knew a good +deal, but did not know quite enough, because these persons, +described as "plenipotentiaries of the Council of Peoples' +Commissars," though all actually in the service of the +Soviet Government, could not all, at that time, have been +what they were said to be. Polivanov, for example, was a +very minor official. Joffe, on the other: hand, was indeed a +person of some importance. The putting of the names in +that order was almost as funny as if they had produced a +document signed by Lenin and the Commandant of the +Kremlin, putting the latter first. + + +Pokrovsky told me a good deal about the organization of +this Commissariat, as Lunacharsky, the actual head of it, +was away in Petrograd. The routine work is run by a +College of nine members appointed by the Council of +People's Commissars. The Commissar of Education +himself is appointed by the All-Russian Executive +Committee. Besides this, there is a Grand College which +meets rarely for the settlement of important questions. In it +are representatives of the Trades Unions, the +Workers' Co-operatives, the Teachers' Union, various +Commissariats such as that for affairs of Nationality, and +other public organizations. He also gave me then and at a +later date a number of figures illustrating the work that has +been done since the revolution. Thus whereas there used to +be six universities there are now sixteen, most of the new +universities having been opened on the initiative of the local +Soviets, as at Astrakhan, Nijni, Kostroma, Tambov, +Smolensk and other places. New polytechnics are being +founded. At Ivano-Vosnesensk the new polytechnic is +opened and that at Briansk is being prepared. The number +of students in the universities has increased enormously +though not to the same proportion as the number of +universities, partly because the difficulties of food supply +keep many students out of the towns, and partly because of +the newness of some of the universities which are only now +gathering their students about them. All education is free. +In August last a decree was passed abolishing preliminary +examinations for persons wishing to become students. It +was considered that very many people who could attend the +lectures with profit to themselves had been prevented +by the war or by pre-revolution conditions from acquiring +the sort of knowledge that could be tested by examination. +It was also believed that no one would willingly listen to +lectures that were of no use to him. They hoped to get as +many working men into the universities as possible. Since +the passing of that decree the number of students at +Moscow University, for example, has more than doubled. +It is interesting to notice that of the new students a greater +number are studying in the faculties of science and history +and philosophy than in those of medicine or law. Schools +are being unified on a new basis in which labour plays a +great part. I frankly admit I do not understand, and I gather +that many teachers have also failed to understand, how this +is done. Crafts of all kinds take a big place in the scheme. +The schools are divided into two classes-one for children +from seven to twelve years old, and one for those aged +from thirteen to seventeen. A milliard roubles has been +assigned to feeding children in the schools, and those who +most need them are supplied with clothes and footgear. +Then there are many classes for working men, +designed to give the worker a general scientific knowledge +of his own trade and so prevent him from being merely a +machine carrying out a single uncomprehended process. +Thus a boiler-maker can attend a course on mechanical +engineering, an electrical worker a course on electricity, +and the best agricultural experts are being employed to give +similar lectures to the peasants. The workmen crowd to +these courses. One course, for example, is attended by a +thousand men in spite of the appalling cold of the lecture +rooms. The hands of the science professors, so Pokrovsky +told me, are frostbitten from touching the icy metal of their +instruments during demonstrations. + + +The following figures represent roughly the growth in the +number of libraries. In October, 1917, there were 23 +libraries in Petrograd, 30 in Moscow. Today there are 49 +in Petrograd and 85 in Moscow, besides a hundred book +distributing centres. A similar growth in the number of +libraries has taken place in the country districts. In +Ousolsky ouezd, for example, there are now 73 village +libraries, 35 larger libraries and 500 hut libraries or +reading rooms. In Moscow educational institutions, not +including schools, have increased from 369 to 1,357. + + +There are special departments for the circulation of printed +matter, and they really have developed a remarkable +organization. I was shown over their headquarters on the +Tverskaya, and saw huge maps of Russia with all the +distributing centres marked with reference numbers so that +it was possible to tell in a moment what number of any new +publication should be sent to each. Every post office is a +distributing centre to which is sent a certain number of all +publications, periodical and other. The local Soviets ask +through the post offices for such quantities as are required, +so that the supply can be closely regulated by the demand. +The book-selling kiosks send in reports of the sale of the +various newspapers, etc., to eliminate the waste of +over-production, a very important matter in a country faced +simultaneously by a vigorous demand for printed matter +and an extreme scarcity of paper. + + +It would be interesting to have statistics to illustrate the +character of the literature in demand. One thing can be +said at once. No one reads sentimental romances. As is +natural in a period of tremendous political upheaval +pamphlets sell by the thousand, speeches of Lenin and +Trotsky are only equalled in popularity by Demian Biedny's +more or less political poetry. Pamphlets and books on +Marx, on the war, and particularly on certain phases of the +revolution, on different aspects of economic reconstruction, +simply written explanations of laws or policies vanish +almost as soon as they are put on the stalls. The reading of +this kind has been something prodigious during the +revolution. A great deal of poetry is read, and much is +written. It is amusing to find in a red-hot revolutionary +paper serious articles and letters by well-meaning persons +advising would-be proletarian poets to stick to Pushkin +and Lermontov. There is much excited controversy both in +magazine and pamphlet form as to the distinguishing marks +of the new proletarian art which is expected to come out of +the revolution and no doubt will come, though not in the +form expected. But the Communists cannot be accused of +being unfaithful to the Russian classics. Even Radek, +a foreign fosterchild and an adopted Russian, took Gogol as +well as Shakespeare with him when he went to annoy +General Hoffmann at Brest. The Soviet Government has +earned the gratitude of many Russians who dislike it for +everything else it has done by the resolute way in which it +has brought the Russian classics into the bookshops. +Books that were out of print and unobtainable, like +Kliutchevsky's "Courses in Russian History," have been +reprinted from the stereotypes and set afloat again at most +reasonable prices. I was also able to buy a book of his +which I have long wanted, his "Foreigners' Accounts of the +Muscovite State," which had also fallen out of print. In the +same way the Government has reprinted, and sells at fixed +low prices that may not be raised by retailers, the works of +Koltzov, Nikitin, Krylov, Saltykov-Shtchedrin, Chekhov, +Goncharov, Uspensky, Tchernyshevsky, Pomyalovsky and +others. It is issuing Chukovsky's edition of Nekrasov, +reprints of Tolstoy, Dostoievsky and Turgenev, and books +by Professor Timiriazev, Karl Pearson and others of a +scientific character, besides the complete works of +Lenin's old rival, Plekhanov. It is true that most of +this work is simply done by reprinting from old +stereotypes, but the point is that the books are there, and the +sale for them is very large. + + +Among the other experts on the subject of the Soviet's +educational work I consulted two friends, a little boy, +Glyeb, who sturdily calls himself a Cadet though three of +his sisters work in Soviet institutions, and an old and very +wise porter. Glyeb says that during the winter they had no +heating, so that they sat in school in their coats, and only +sat for a very short time, because of the great cold. He told +me, however, that they gave him a good dinner there every +day, and that lessons would be all right as soon as the +weather got warmer. He showed me a pair of felt boots +which had been given him at the school. The old porter +summed up the similar experience of his sons. "Yes," he +said, "they go there, sing the Marseillaise twice through, +have dinner and come home." I then took these expert +criticisms to Pokrovsky who said, "It is perfectly true. We +have not enough transport to feed the armies, let alone +bringing food and warmth for ourselves. + +And if, under these conditions, we forced children to +go through all their lessons we should have corpses to +teach, not children. But by making them come for their +meals we do two things, keep them alive, and keep them in +the habit of coming, so that when the warm weather comes +we can do better." + + + + + + + + + + + +A BOLSHEVIK FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY + + + +At Sukhanov's suggestion I went, to see Professor +Timiriazev, the greatest Russian Darwinian, well-known to +many scientific men in this country, a foreign member of +the Royal Society, a Doctor of Cambridge University and a +Bolshevik. He is about eighty years old. His left arm is +paralysed, and, as he said, he can only work at his desk and +not be out and about to help as he would wish. A +venerable old savant, he was sitting writing with a green +dressing gown about him, for his little flat was very cold. +On the walls were portraits of Darwin, Newton and Gilbert, +besides portraits of contemporary men of science whom he +had known. English books were everywhere. He gave me, +two copies of his last scientific book and his latest portrait +to take to two of his friends in England. + + +He lives with his wife and son. I asked if his son were also a Bolshevik. + + +"Of course," he replied. + + +He then read me a letter he had written protesting against +intervention. He spoke of his old love for England and for +the English people. Then, speaking of the veil of lies +drawn between Soviet Russia and the rest of the world, he +broke down altogether, and bent his head to hide his tears. + + +"I suffer doubly," he said, after excusing himself for the +weakness of a very old man. "I suffer as a Russian, and, if +I may say so, I suffer as an Englishman. I have English +blood in my veins. My mother, you see, looks quite +English," pointing to a daguerreotype on the wall, "and my +grandmother was actually English. I suffer as an +Englishman when I see the country that I love misled by +lies, and I suffer as a Russian because those lies concern +the country to which I belong, and the ideas which I am +proud to hold." + + +The old man rose with difficulty, for he, like every one else +in Moscow, is half starved. He showed me his Byron, his +Shakespeare, his Encyclopaedia Britannica, his English +diplomas. He pointed to the portraits on the wall. "If I +could but let them know the truth," he said, "those friends +of mine in England, they would protest against actions +which are unworthy of the England we have loved +together." + + + + +DIGRESSION + + + +At this point the chronological arrangement of my book, +already weak, breaks down altogether. So far I have set +down, almost day by day, things seen and heard which +seemed to me characteristic and clear illustration of the +mentality of the Communists, of the work that has been +done or that they are trying to do, and of the general state of +affairs. I spent the whole of my time in ceaseless +investigation, talking now with this man, now with that, +until at the end of a month I was so tired (besides being +permanently hungry) that I began to fear rather than to seek +new experiences and impressions. The last two weeks of +my stay were spent, not in visiting Commissariats, but in +collecting masses of printed material, in talking with my +friends of the opposition parties, and, while it was in +progress, visiting daily the Conference in the Kremlin +which, in the end, definitely announced itself as the +Third International. I have considered it best to treat of that +Conference more or less as a whole, and am therefore +compelled to disregard chronology altogether in putting +down on paper, the results of some of my talks with the +opposition. Some of these took place on the same days as +my visits to the Kremlin conference, and during those days +I was also partly engaged in getting to see the British +prisoners in the Butyrka prison, in which I eventually +succeeded. This is my excuse for the inadequacy of my +account of the conference, an inadequacy which I regret the +more as I was the only non-Communist who was able to +be there at all. + + + + + +THE OPPOSITION + + + +No man likes being hungry. No man likes being cold. +Everybody in Moscow, as in Petrograd, is both hungry and +cold. There is consequently very general and very bitter +discontent. This is of course increased, not lessened, by the +discipline introduced into the factories and the heavy +burden of the army, although the one is intended to hasten +the end of hunger and cold and the other for the defence of +the revolution. The Communists, as the party in power, +naturally bear the blame and are the objects of the +discontent, which will certainly within a short time be +turned upon any other government that may succeed them. +That government must introduce sterner discipline rather +than weaker, and the transport and other difficulties of the +country will remain the same, unless increased by the +disorder of a new upheaval and the active or passive +resistance of many who are convinced revolutionaries +or will become so in answer to repression. + + +The Communists believe that to let power slip from their +hands at this moment would be treachery to the revolution. +And, in the face of the advancing forces of the Allies and +Kolchak many of the leaders of the opposition are inclined +to agree with them, and temporarily to submit to what they +undoubtedly consider rank tyranny. A position has been +reached after these eighteen months not unlike that reached +by the English Parliament party in 1643. I am reminded of +a passage in Guizot, which is so illuminating that I make no +apology for quoting it in full:-- + + +"The party had been in the ascendant for three years: +whether it had or had not, in church and state, +accomplished its designs, it was at all events by its aid and +concurrence that, for three years, public affairs had been +conducted; this alone was sufficient to make many people +weary of it; it was made responsible for the many evils +already endured, for the many hopes frustrated; it was +denounced as being no less addicted to persecution than the +bishops, no less arbitrary than the king:]196]its +inconsistencies, its weaknesses, were recalled with +bitterness; and, independently of this, even without factions +or interested views, from the mere progress of events and +opinions, there was felt a secret need of new principles and +new rulers." + + +New rulers are advancing on Moscow from Siberia, but I +do not think that they claim that they are bringing with +them new principles. Though the masses may want new +principles, and might for a moment submit to a +reintroduction of very old principles in desperate hope of +less hunger and less cold, no one but a lunatic could +imagine that they would for very long willingly submit to +them. In the face of the danger that they may be forced to +submit not to new principles but to very old ones, the +non-Communist leaders are unwilling to use to the full the +discontent that exists. Hunger and cold are a good enough +basis of agitation for anyone desirous of overturning any +existing government. But the Left Social Revolutionaries, +led by the hysterical but flamingly honest Spiridonova, are +alone in having no scruples or hesitation in the matter, the +more responsible parties fearing the anarchy and +consequent weakening of the revolution that would +result from any violent change. + + +THE LEFT SOCIAL REVOLUTIONARIES + + +The Left Social Revolutionaries want something so much +like anarchy that they have nothing to fear in a collapse of +the present system. They are for a partisan army, not a +regular army. They are against the employment of officers +who served under the old regime. They are against the +employment of responsible technicians and commercial +experts in the factories. They believe that officers and +experts alike, being ex-bourgeois, must be enemies of the +people, insidiously engineering reaction. They are opposed +to any agreement with the Allies, exactly as they were +opposed to any agreement with the Germans. I heard them +describe the Communists as "the bourgeois gendarmes of +the Entente," on the ground that having offered concessions +they would be keeping order in Russia for the benefit of +Allied capital. They blew up Mirbach, and would no doubt +try to blow up any successors he might have. Not wanting +a regular army (a low bourgeois weapon) they would welcome +occupation in order that they, with bees in their bonnets +and bombs in their hands, might go about revolting against it. + + +I did not see Spiridonova, because on February 11, the very +day when I had an appointment with her, the Communists +arrested her, on the ground that her agitation was dangerous +and anarchist in tendency, fomenting discontent without a +programme for its satisfaction. Having a great respect for +her honesty, they were hard put to it to know what to do +with her, and she was finally sentenced to be sent for a year +to a home for neurasthenics, "where she would be able to +read and write and recover her normality." That the +Communists were right in fearing this agitation was proved +by the troubles in Petrograd, where the workmen in some +of the factories struck, and passed Left Social +Revolutionary resolutions which, so far from showing that +they were awaiting reaction and General Judenitch, showed +simply that they were discontented and prepared to move to +the left. + + +THE MENSHEVIKS + + +The second main group of opposition is dominated by the +Mensheviks . Their chief leaders are Martov and Dan. Of +these two, Martov is by far the cleverer, Dan the more +garrulous, being often led away by his own volubility into +agitation of a kind not approved by his friends. Both are +men of very considerable courage. Both are Jews. + + +The Mensheviks would like the reintroduction of +capitalists, of course much chastened by experience, and +properly controlled by themselves. Unlike Spiridonova and +her romantic supporters they approved of Chicherin's offer +of peace and concessions to the Allies (see page 44). They +have even issued an appeal that the Allies should come to +an agreement with "Lenin's Government." As may be +gathered from their choice of a name for the Soviet +Government, they are extremely hostile to it, but they fear +worse things, and are consequently a little shy of exploiting +as they easily could the dislike of the people for hunger and +cold. They fear that agitation on these lines might well +result in anarchy, which would leave the revolution +temporarily defenceless against Kolchak, Denikin, +Judenitch or any other armed reactionary. Their +non-Communist enemies say of the Mensheviks: +"They have no constructive programme; they would +like a bourgeois government back again, in order +that they might be in opposition to it, on the left" + + +On March 2nd, I went to an election meeting of workers +and officials of the Moscow Co-operatives. It was +beastly cold in the hall of the University where the +meeting was held, and my nose froze as well as my feet. +Speakers were announced from the Communists, +Internationalists, Mensheviks, and Right +Social Revolutionaries. The last-named did not arrive. +The Presidium was for the most part non-Communist, +and the meeting was about equally divided for and +against the Communists. A Communist led +off with a very bad speech on the general European +situation and to the effect that there was no salvation for +Russia except by the way she was going. Lozovsky, the +old Internationalist, spoke next, supporting the Bolsheviks' +general policy but criticizing their suppression of the +press. Then came Dan, the Menshevik, to hear whom I had +come. He is a little, sanguine man, who gets very hot as he +speaks. He conducted an attack on the whole Bolshevik +position combined with a declaration that so long as they +are attacked from without he is prepared to support them. +The gist of his speech was: 1. He was in favour of fighting +Kolchak. 2. But the Bolshevik policy with regard to the peasants will, +since as the army grows it must contain more and more +peasants, end in the creation of an army with +counter-revolutionary sympathies. 3. He objected to the +Bolshevik criticism of the Berne, delegation (see page 156) +on very curious grounds, saying that though Thomas, +Henderson, etc., backed their own Imperialists during the +war, all that was now over, and that union with them would +help, not hinder, revolution in England and France. 4. He +pointed out that "All power to the Soviets" now means "All +power to the Bolsheviks," and said that he wished that the +Soviets should actually have all power instead of merely +supporting the Bolshevik bureaucracy. He was asked for +his own programme, but said he had not time to give +it. I watched the applause carefully. General +dissatisfaction with the present state of affairs was obvious, +but it was also obvious that no party would have a chance +that admitted its aim was extinction of the Soviets (which +Dan's ultimate aim certainly is, or at least the changing of +them into non-political industrial organizations) or that was not +prepared to fight against reaction from without. + + +I went to see Sukhanov (the friend of Gorky and Martov, +though his political opinions do not precisely agree with +those of either), partly to get the proofs of his first volume +of reminiscences of the revolution, partly to hear what he +had to say. I found him muffled up in a dressing gown or +overcoat in an unheated flat, sitting down to tea with no +sugar, very little bread, a little sausage and a surprising +scrap of butter, brought in, I suppose, from the country by a +friend. Nikitsky, a Menshevik, was also there, a hopeless +figure, prophesying the rotting of the whole system and of +the revolution. Sukhanov asked me if I had noticed the +disappearance of all spoons (there are now none, but +wooden spoons in the Metropole) as a symbol of the +falling to pieces of the revolution. I told him that though I +had not lived in Russia thirty years or more, as he had, I +had yet lived there long enough and had, before the +revolution, sufficient experience in the loss of fishing +tackle, not to be surprised that Russian peasants, even +delegates, when able, as in such a moment of convulsion as +the revolution, stole spoons if only as souvenirs to show +that they had really been to Moscow. + + +We talked, of course, of their attitude towards the +Bolsheviks. Both work in Soviet institutions. Sukhanov +(Nikitsky agreeing) believed that if the Bolsheviks came +further to meet the other parties, Mensheviks, etc., +"Kolchak and Denikin would commit suicide and your +Lloyd George would give up all thought of intervention." I +asked, What if they should be told to hold a Constituent +Assembly or submit to a continuance of the blockade? +Sukhanov said, "Such a Constituent Assembly would be +impossible, and we should be against it." Of the Soviets, +one or other said, "We stand absolutely on the platform of +the Soviet Government now: but we think that such a form +cannot be permanent. We consider the Soviets perfect +instruments of class struggle, but not a perfect form of +government." I asked Sukhanov if he thought counter +revolution possible. He said "No," but admitted that there +was a danger lest the agitation of the Mensheviks or others +might set fire to the discontent of the masses against the +actual physical conditions, and end in pogroms destroying +Bolsheviks and Mensheviks alike. Their general theory +was that Russia was not so far developed that a Socialist +State was at present possible. They therefore wanted a state +in which private capital should exist, and in which factories +were not run by the state but by individual owners. They +believed that the peasants, with their instincts of small +property-holders, would eventually enforce something of +the kind, and that the end would be some form of +democratic Republic. These two were against the offering +of concessions to the Allies, on the ground that those under +consideration involved the handing over to the +concessionaires of the whole power in northern Russia-railways, +forests, the right to set up their own banks in the +towns served by the railway, with all that this implied. +Sukhanov was against concessions on principle, and +regretted that the Mensheviks were in favour of them. + + +I saw Martov at the offices of his newspaper, which had +just been suppressed on account of an article, which he +admitted was a little indiscreet, objecting to the upkeep of +the Red Army (see page 167). He pointed eloquently to the +seal on some of the doors, but told me that he had started a +new paper, of which he showed me the first number, and +told me that the demand for it was such that although he +had intended that it should be a weekly he now expected to +make it a daily. Martov said that he and his party were +against every form of intervention for the following +reasons: +1. The continuation of hostilities, the need of an army and +of active defence were bound to intensify the least desirable +qualities of the revolution whereas an agreement, by +lessening the tension, would certainly lead to moderation of +Bolshevik Policy. 2. The needs of the army overwhelmed +every effort at restoring the economic life of the country. +He was further convinced that intervention of any kind +favoured reaction, even supposing that the Allies did not +wish this. "They cannot help themselves," he said, +"the forces that would support intervention must be +dominated by those of reaction, since all of the +non-reactionary parties are prepared to sink their +differences with the Bolsheviks, in order to defend the +revolution as a whole." He said he was convinced that +the Bolsheviks would either have to alter or +go. He read me, in illustration of this, a letter from a +peasant showing the unreadiness of the peasantry to go into +communes (compulsion in this matter has already been +discarded by the Central Government). "We took the land," +wrote the peasant in some such words, "not much, just as +much as we could work, we ploughed it where it had not +been ploughed before, and now, if it is made into a +commune, other lazy fellows who have done nothing will +come in and profit by our work." Martov argued that life +itself, the needs of the country and the will of the peasant +masses, would lead to the changes he thinks desirable in the +Soviet regime. + + +THE RIGHT SOCIAL REVOLUTIONARIES + + +The position of the Right Social Revolutionaries is a good +deal more complicated than that of the Mensheviks. +In their later declarations they are as far from their +romantic anarchist left wing as they are from their +romantic reactionary extreme right. They stand, +as they have always stood, for a Constituent Assembly, but +they have thrown over the idea of instituting a Constituent +Assembly by force. They have come into closer contact +with the Allies than any other party to the left of the Cadets. +By doing so, by associating themselves with the Czech +forces on the Volga and minor revolts of a reactionary +character inside Russia, they have pretty badly +compromised themselves. Their change of attitude towards +the Soviet Government must not be attributed to any change +in their own programme, but to the realization that the +forces which they imagined were supporting them were +actually being used to support something a great deal +further right. The Printers' Gazette, a non-Bolshevik +organ, printed one of their resolutions, one point of which +demands the overthrow of the reactionary governments +supported by the Allies or the Germans, and another +condemns every attempt to overthrow the Soviet +Government by force of arms, on the ground that such +an attempt would weaken the working class as a whole and +would be used by the reactionary groups for their own +purposes. + + + +Volsky is a Right Social Revolutionary, and was President +of that Conference of Members of the Constituent +Assembly from whose hands the Directorate which ruled in +Siberia received its authority and Admiral Kolchak his +command, his proper title being Commander of the Forces +of the Constituent Assembly. The Constituent Assembly +members were to have met on January 1st of this year, then +to retake authority from the Directorate and organize a +government on an All-Russian basis. But there was +continual friction between the Directorate and the +Conference of members of the Constituent Assembly, the +Directorate being more reactionary than they. In November +came Kolchak's coup d'=82tat, followed by a declaration +against him and an appeal for his overthrow issued by +members of the Constituent Assembly. Some were arrested +by a group of officers. A few are said to have been killed. +Kolchak, I think, has denied responsibility for this, and +probably was unaware of the intentions of the +reactionaries under his command. Others of the members +escaped to Ufa. On December 5th, 25 days before that +town was taken by the Bolsheviks, they announced their +intention of no longer opposing the Soviet Government in +the field. After the capture of the town by the Soviet +troops, negotiations were begun between the +representatives of the Conference of Members of the +Constituent Assembly, together with other Right Social +Revolutionaries, and representatives of the Soviet +Government, with a view to finding a basis for agreement. +The result of those negotiations was the resolution passed +by the Executive Committee on February 26th (see page +166). A delegation of the members came to Moscow, and +were quaintly housed in a huge room in the Metropole, +where they had put up beds all round the walls and big +tables in the middle of the room for their deliberations. It +was in this room that I saw Volsky first, and afterwards in +my own. + + +I asked him what exactly had brought him and all that he +represented over from the side of Kolchak and the Allies to +the side of the Soviet Government. He looked me +straight in the face, and said: "I'll tell you. We were +convinced by many facts that the policy of the Allied +representatives in Siberia was directed not to strengthening +the Constituent Assembly against the Bolsheviks and the +Germans, but simply to strengthening the reactionary forces +behind our backs." + + +He also complained: "All through last summer we were +holding that front with the Czechs, being told that there +were two divisions of Germans advancing to attack us, and +we now know that there were no German troops in Russia +at all." + + +He criticized the Bolsheviks for being better makers of +programmes than organizers. They offered free electricity, +and presently had to admit that soon there would be no +electricity for lack of fuel. They did not sufficiently base +their policy on the study of actual possibilities. "But that +they are really fighting against a bourgeois dictatorship is +clear to us. We are, therefore, prepared to help them in +every possible way." + + +He said, further: "Intervention of any kind +will prolong the regime of the Bolsheviks by +compelling us to drop opposition to the Soviet Government, +although we do not like it, and to support it because it is +defending the revolution." + + +With regard to help given to individual groups or +governments fighting against Soviet Russia, Volsky said +that they saw no difference between such intervention and +intervention in the form of sending troops. + + +I asked what he thought would happen. He answered in +almost the same words as those used by Martov, that life +itself would compel the Bolsheviks to alter their policy or +to go. Sooner or later the peasants would make their will +felt, and they were against the bourgeoisie and against the +Bolsheviks. No bourgeois reaction could win permanently +against the Soviet, because it could have nothing to offer, +no idea for which people would fight. If by any chance +Kolchak, Denikin and Co. were to win, they would have to +kill in tens of thousands where the Bolsheviks have had to +kill in hundreds, and the result would be the complete ruin +and the collapse of Russia in anarchy. "Has not the +Ukraine been enough to teach the Allies that even six +months' occupation of non-Bolshevik territory +by half a million troops has merely the effect of +turning the population into Bolsheviks?" + + + + +THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL + + + +March 3rd. + + +One day near the end of February, Bucharin, hearing that I +meant to leave quite soon, said rather mysteriously, "Wait a +few days longer, because something of international +importance is going to happen which will certainly be of +interest for your history." That was the only hint I got of +the preparation of the Third International. Bucharin refused +to say more. On March 3rd Reinstein looked in about nine +in the morning and said he had got me a guest's ticket for +the conference in the Kremlin, and wondered why I had not +been there the day before, when it had opened. I told him I +knew nothing whatever about it; Litvinov and Karakhan, +whom I had seen quite recently, had never mentioned it, +and guessing that this must be the secret at which Bucharin +had hinted, I supposed that they had purposely kept +silence. I therefore rang up Litvinov, and asked if they +had had any reason against my going. He said that he had +thought it would not interest me. So I went. The +Conference was still a secret. There was nothing about it in +the morning papers. + + +The meeting was in a smallish room, with a dais at one end, +in the old Courts of Justice built in the time of Catherine the +Second, who would certainly have turned in her grave if +she had known the use to which it was being put. Two +very smart soldiers of the Red Army were guarding the +doors. The whole room, including the floor, was decorated +in red. There were banners with "Long Live the Third +International" inscribed upon them in many languages. The +Presidium was on the raised dais at the end of the room, +Lenin sitting in the middle behind a long red-covered table +with Albrecht, a young German Spartacist, on the right and +Platten, the Swiss, on the left. The auditorium sloped down +to the foot of the dais. Chairs were arranged on each side +of an alleyway down the middle, and the four or five front +rows had little tables for convenience in writing. +Everybody of importance was there; Trotzky, +Zinoviev, Kamenev, Chichern, Bucharin, Karakhan, +Litvinov, Vorovsky, Steklov, Rakovsky, representing here +the Balkan Socialist Party, Skripnik, representing the +Ukraine. Then there were Stang (Norwegian Left +Socialists), Grimlund (Swedish Left), Sadoul (France), +Finberg (British Socialist Party), Reinstein (American +Socialist Labour Party), a Turk, a German-Austrian, +a Chinese, and so on. Business was conducted and +speeches were made in all languages, though +where possible German was used, because more of the +foreigners knew German than knew French. This was +unlucky for me. + + +When I got there people were making reports about the +situation in the different countries. Finberg spoke in +English, Rakovsky in French, Sadoul also. Skripnik, who, +being asked, refused to talk German and said he would +speak in either Ukrainian or Russia, and to most people's +relief chose the latter, made several interesting points about +the new revolution in the Ukraine. The killing of the +leaders under the Skoropadsky regime had made no +difference to the movement, and town after town was +falling after internal revolt. (This was before they had +Kiev and, of course, long before they had taken Odessa, +both of which gains they confidently prophesied.) The +sharp lesson of German occupation had taught the +Ukrainian Social Revolutionaries what their experiences +during the last fifteen months had taught the Russian, and +all parties were working together. + +But the real interest of the gathering was in its attitude +towards the Berne conference. Many letters had been +received from members of that conference, Longuet for +example, wishing that the Communists had been +represented there, and the view taken at Moscow was that +the left wing at Berne was feeling uncomfortable at sitting +down with Scheidemann and Company; let them definitely +break with them, finish with the Second International and +join the Third. It was clear that this gathering in the +Kremlin was meant as the nucleus of a new International +opposed to that which had split into national groups, each +supporting its own government in the prosecution of the +war. That was the leit motif of the whole affair. + + +Trotsky, in a leather coat, military breeches and +gaiters, with a fur hat with the sign of the Red Army in +front, was looking very well, but a strange figure for those +who had known him as one of the greatest +anti-militarists in Europe. Lenin sat quietly listening, +speaking when necessary in almost every European +language with astonishing ease. Balabanova talked about +Italy and seemed happy at last, even in Soviet Russia, to be +once more in a "secret meeting." It was really an +extraordinary affair and, in spite of some childishness, I +could not help realizing that I was present at something that +will go down in the histories of socialism, much like that +other strange meeting convened in London in 1848. + + +The vital figures of the conference, not counting Platten, +whom I do not know and on whom I can express no +opinion, were Lenin and the young German, Albrecht, who, +fired no doubt by the events actually taking place in his +country, spoke with brain and character. The German +Austrian also seemed a real man. Rakovsky, Skripnik, and +Sirola the Finn really represented something. But there was +a make-believe side to the whole affair, in which the +English Left Socialists were represented by Finberg, and +the Americans by Reinstein, neither of whom had or was +likely to have any means of communicating with his +constituents. + + +March 4th. + + +In the Kremlin they were discussing the programme on +which the new International was to stand. This is, of +course, dictatorship of the proletariat and all that that +implies. I heard, Lenin make a long speech, the main point +of which was to show that Kautsky and his supporters at +Berne were now condemning the very tactics which they +had praised in 1906. When I was leaving the Kremlin I met +Sirola walking in the square outside the building without a +hat, without a coat, in a cold so intense that I was putting +snow on my nose to prevent frostbite. I exclaimed. Sirola +smiled his ingenuous smile. "It is March," he said, "Spring +is coming." + + +March 5th. + + +Today all secrecy was dropped, a little prematurely, I +fancy, for when I got to the Kremlin I found that the first +note of opposition had been struck by the man who least of +all was expected to strike it. Albrecht, the young German, +had opposed the immediate founding of the Third +International, on the double ground that not all nations were +properly represented and that it might make difficulties for +the political parties concerned in their own countries. +Every one was against him. Rakovsky pointed out that the +same objections could have been raised against the +founding of the First International by Marx in London. The +German-Austrian combated Albrecht's second point. +Other people said that the different parties concerned had +long ago definitely broken with the Second International. +Albrecht was in a minority of one. It was decided therefore +that this conference was actually the Third International. +Platten announced the decision, and the "International" was +sung in a dozen languages at once. Then Albrecht stood +up, a little red in the face, and said that he, of course, +recognized the decision and would announce it in Germany. + + + +March 6th. + + +The conference in the Kremlin ended with the usual singing +and a photograph. Some time before the end, when +Trotsky had just finished speaking and had left the tribune, +there was a squeal of protest from the photographer who +had just trained his apparatus. Some one remarked "The +Dictatorship of the Photographer," and, amid general +laughter, Trotsky had to return to the tribune and stand +silent while the unabashed photographer took two pictures. +The founding of the Third International had been +proclaimed in the morning papers, and an extraordinary +meeting in the Great Theatre announced for the evening. I +got to the theatre at about five, and had difficulty in getting +in, though I had a special ticket as a correspondent. There +were queues outside all the doors. The Moscow Soviet was +there, the Executive Committee, representatives of the +Trades Unions and the Factory Committees, etc. The huge +theatre and the platform were crammed, people standing in +the aisles and even packed close together in the wings of +the stage. Kamenev opened the meeting by a solemn +announcement of the founding of the Third +International in the Kremlin. There was a roar of applause +from the audience, which rose and sang the "International" +in a way that I have never heard it sung since the +All-Russian Assembly when the news came of the strikes in +Germany during the Brest negotiations. Kamenev then +spoke of those who had died on the way, mentioning +Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg, and the whole theatre +stood again while the orchestra played, "You fell as +victims." Then Lenin spoke. If I had ever thought that +Lenin was losing his personal popularity, I got my answer +now. It was a long time before he could speak at all, +everybody standing and drowning his attempts to speak +with roar after roar of applause. It was an extraordinary, +overwhelming scene, tier after tier crammed with workmen, +the parterre filled, the whole platform and the wings. A +knot of workwomen were close to me, and they almost +fought to see him, and shouted as if each one were +determined that he should hear her in particular. He spoke +as usual, in the simplest way, emphasizing the fact that the +revolutionary struggle everywhere was forced to use the +Soviet forms. "We declare our solidarity with +the aims of the Sovietists," he read from an Italian +paper, and added, "and that was when they did not +know what our aims were, and before we had an +established programme ourselves." Albrecht made +a very long reasoned speech for Spartacus, which +was translated by Trotsky. Guilbeau, seemingly a mere +child, spoke of the socialist movement in France. Steklov +was translating him when I left. You must remember that I +had had nearly two years of such meetings, and am not a +Russian. When I got outside the theatre, I found at each +door a disappointed crowd that had been unable to get in. + + +The proceedings finished up next day with a review in the +Red Square and a general holiday. + + +If the Berne delegates had come, as they were expected, +they would have been told by the Communists that they +were welcome visitors, but that they were not regarded as +representing the International. There would then have +ensued a lively battle over each one of the delegates, the +Mensheviks urging him to stick to Berne, and the +Communists urging him to express allegiance to the +Kremlin. There would have been demonstrations and +counter-demonstrations, and altogether I am very sorry +that it did not happen and that I was not there to see. + + + + +LAST TALK WITH LENIN + + + +I went to see Lenin the day after the Review in the Red +Square, and the general holiday in honour of the Third +International. The first thing he said was: "I am afraid that +the Jingoes in England and France will make use of +yesterday's doings as an excuse for further action against +us. They will say 'How can we leave them in peace when +they set about setting the world on fire?' To that I would +answer, 'We are at war, Messieurs! And just as during +your war you tried to make revolution in Germany, and +Germany did make trouble in Ireland and India, so we, +while we are at war with you, adopt the measures that are +open to us. We have told you we are willing to make +peace.'" + + +He spoke of Chicherin's last note, and said they based all +their hopes on it. Balfour had said somewhere, "Let the fire +burn itself out." That it would not do. But the quickest +way of restoring good conditions in Russia was, of course, +peace and agreement with the Allies. "I am sure we could +come to terms, if they want to come to terms at all. +England and America would be willing, perhaps, if their +hands were not tied by France. But intervention in the +large sense can now hardly be. They must have learnt that +Russia could never be governed as India is governed, and +that sending troops here is the same thing as sending them +to a Communist University." + + +I said something about the general hostility to their +propaganda noticeable in foreign countries. + + +Lenin. "Tell them to build a Chinese wall round each of +their countries. They have their customs-officers, their +frontiers, their coast-guards. They can expel any +Bolsheviks they wish. Revolution does not depend on +propaganda. If the conditions of revolution are not there no +sort of propaganda will either hasten or impede it. The war +has brought about those conditions in all countries, and I +am convinced that if Russia today were to be swallowed up +by the sea, were to cease to exist altogether, the revolution +in the rest of Europe would go on. Put Russia under +water for twenty years, and you would not affect by a +shilling or an hour a week the demand, of the +shop-stewards in England." + + +I told him, what I have told most of them many times, that I +did not believe there would be a revolution in England. + + +Lenin. "We have a saying that a man may have typhoid +while still on his legs. Twenty, maybe thirty years ago I had +abortive typhoid, and was going about with it, +had had it some days before it knocked me over. Well, +England and France and Italy have caught the disease +already. England may seem to you to be untouched, but the +microbe is already there." + + +I said that just as his typhoid was abortive typhoid, so the +disturbances in England to which he alluded might well be +abortive revolution, and come to nothing. I told him the +vague, disconnected character of the strikes and the +generally liberal as opposed to socialist character of the +movement, so far as it was political at all, reminded me of +what I had heard of 1905 in Russia and not at all of +1917, and that I was sure it would settle down. + + +Lenin. "Yes, that is possible. It is, perhaps, an educative +period, in which the English workmen will come to realize +their political needs, and turn from liberalism to Socialism. +Socialism is certainly weak in England. Your socialist +movements, your socialist parties . . . when I was in +England I zealously attended everything I could, and for a +country with so large an industrial population they were +pitiable, pitiable . . . a handful at a street corner . . . a +meeting in a drawing room . . . a school class . . . pitiable. +But you must remember one great difference between +Russia of 1905 and England of to-day. Our first Soviet in +Russia was made during the revolution. Your +shop-stewards committees have been in existence +long before. They are without programme, without +direction, but the opposition they will meet will force +a programme upon them." + + +Speaking of the expected visit of the Berne delegation, he +asked me if I knew MacDonald, whose name had been +substituted for that of Henderson in later telegrams +announcing their coming. He ,said: "I am very glad +MacDonald is coming instead of Henderson. Of course +MacDonald is not a Marxist in any sense of the word, but +he is at least interested in theory, and can therefore be +trusted to do his best to understand what is happening here. +More than that we do not ask." + + +We then talked a little on a subject that interests me very +much, namely, the way in which insensibly, quite apart +from war, the Communist theories are being modified in the +difficult process of their translation into practice. We +talked of the changes in "workers' control," which is now a +very different thing from the wild committee business that +at first made work almost impossible. We talked then of +the antipathy of the peasants to compulsory communism, +and how that idea also had been considerably whittled +away. I asked him what were going to be the relations +between the Communists of the towns and the +property-loving peasants, and whether there was +not great danger of antipathy between them, and said +I regretted leaving too soon to see the elasticity of +the Communist theories tested by the inevitable +pressure of the peasantry. + + +Lenin said that in Russia there was a pretty sharp +distinction between the rich peasants and the poor. "The +only opposition we have here in Russia is directly or +indirectly due to the rich peasants. The poor, as soon as +they are liberated from the political domination of the rich, +are on our side and are in an enormous majority." + + +I said that would not be so in the Ukraine, where property +among the peasants is much more equally distributed. + + +Lenin. "No. And there, in the Ukraine, you will certainly +see our policy modified. Civil war, whatever happens, is +likely to be more bitter in the Ukraine than elsewhere, +because there the instinct of property has been further +developed in the peasantry, and the minority and majority +will be more equal." + + +He asked me if I meant to return, saying that I could go +down to Kiev to watch the revolution there as I had +watched it in Moscow. I said I should be very sorry to +think that this was my last visit to the country which I +love only second to my own. He laughed, and paid me the +compliment of saying that, "although English," I had more +or less succeeded in understanding what they were at, and +that he should be pleased to see me again. + + + + +THE JOURNEY OUT + + + +March 15th. + + +There is nothing to record about the last few days of my +visit, fully occupied as they were with the collection and +packing of printed material and preparations for departure. +I left with the two Americans, Messrs. Bullitt and Steffens, +who had come to Moscow some days previously, and +travelled up in the train with Bill Shatov, the Commandant +of Petrograd, who is not a Bolshevik but a fervent admirer +of Prince Kropotkin, for the distribution of whose works in +Russia he has probably done as much as any man. Shatov +was an emigr=82 in New York, returned to Russia, brought +law and order into the chaos of the Petrograd-Moscow +railway, never lost a chance of doing a good turn to an +American, and with his level-headedness and practical +sense became one of the hardest worked servants of the +Soviet, although, as he said, the moment people +stopped attacking them he would be the first to pull down +the Bolsheviks. He went into the occupied provinces +during the German evacuation of them, to buy arms and +ammunition from the German soldiers. Prices, he said, ran +low. You could buy rifles for a mark each, field guns for +150 marks, and a field wireless station for 500. He had +then been made Commandant of Petrograd, although there +had been some talk of setting him to reorganize transport. +Asked how long he thought the Soviet Government could +hold but, he replied, "We can afford to starve another year +for the sake of the Revolution." + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Russia in 1919, by Arthur Ransome + diff --git a/1324.zip b/1324.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f90be6a --- /dev/null +++ b/1324.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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