When I succeeded in getting into the vast Bolshoi auditorium, Martin
Anderson Nexö, the author of _Pelle, the Conqueror_, waved to me to
come and sit beside him. He was seated in the center front of the
hall. But an usher grabbed me, and before I could realize where I was
going, I was being handed from usher to usher like an object that was
consigned to a special place. At first I thought I was going to be
conducted to the balcony, but instead I was ushered onto the platform
to a seat beside Max Eastman and just behind Zinoviev. It seems as if
the curious interest of the crowd focused upon me had prompted Zinoviev
to hoist me up there on the platform.
Zinoviev asked me to speak and I refused. Max Eastman pleaded: "Do
speak! See how the people are looking at you; they want to hear you." I
said that if they had given me notice beforehand I might have prepared
a few phrases, although speaking was not my specialty. But I wouldn't
stand up before the Bolshevik élite and that vast eager crowd, without
having something prepared to say. Eastman said: "Just tell them you
bring greetings from the Negro workers of America."
"But," said I, "I have no mandate from any American Negro workers to
say that. There is an official mulatto delegate; perhaps he has a
message from the Negro workers."
I said to Eastman, "Why don't you speak?" He said he would like to
if they would ask him. Certainly the American Communists had in Max
Eastman the finest platform personality to present. Unlike me, he was
as pure a Marxist as any of them there and had given the best of his
intellect to serve the cause of Communism and extoll the Soviets in
America. But because of petty jealousy they cold-shouldered Eastman
in Moscow. Perhaps if they had been a little diplomatic about him, he
probably would be one of them instead of a Trotskyist today.
I told Zinoviev that I came to Russia as a writer and not as an
agitator. When his messenger interpreted what I said, Zinoviev's
preacher face turned mean. He was most angry. But I did not mind.
My personal triumph had made me aware that the Russians wanted a
typical Negro at the Congress as much as I wanted to attend the
Congress. The mulatto delegate was a washout. He was too yellow. I
had mobilized my African features and won the masses of the people.
The Bolshevik leaders, to satisfy the desires of the people, were
using me for entertainment. So why should I worry about Zinoviev's
frown? Even though he was president of the great Third International,
I knew that there was no special gift I could get from Zinoviev after
the entertainment was over and ended. I could never be a radical
agitator. For that I was temperamentally unfit. And I could never be a
disciplined member of any Communist party, for I was born to be a poet.
And now I was demanded everywhere. Sometimes I had to participate
in three different meetings in one day: factory meetings, meetings
of soviets, youth meetings, educational conferences in colleges
and schools, the meetings of poets and writers, and theatrical
performances. I was introduced to interesting sections of the new
social and cultural life of Moscow and Petrograd.
I was always asked to speak, and so I prepared a few phrases. The
Russians adore long speeches, which it did not interest me to make. And
so they lengthened mine by asking a lot of questions. I had listened
to the American delegates deliberately telling lies about conditions
in America, and I was disgusted. Not only the Communist delegates, but
radical American intellectuals really thought it was right to buoy
up the Russians with false pictures of the American situation. All
the speeches of the American delegates, the tall rhetoric, the purple
phrases, conveyed fundamentally a common message, thus: "Greetings
from America. The workers of America are groaning under the capitalist
terror. The revolutionary organizations have been driven underground.
But the American Communist Party is secretly organizing the masses. In
a few years we will overthrow American capitalism and join our forces
with the Russian Communists. Long live the Revolution...." I heard the
chairman of the American delegation say: "In five years we will have
the American revolution."
The Russians from these speeches pictured the workers of America as
denied the right to organize and the rights of free assembly and
free speech, as denied representation in Congress, as ridden down by
American cossacks, banished in droves from their homes to the Siberias
of the Far West, with their imprisoned and exiled leaders escaping to
Canada and Mexico and working underground to overthrow the capitalist
system. Briefly, the American situation, as they understood it, was
similar to that of Russia under the Czarist régime just before the
revolution.
The police raid on the illegal Communist party meeting in the beautiful
woods of Michigan had been spread all over the Russian newspapers.
Everything about that funny raid was so Czarist-Russian-like that the
Russians really believed that it was typical of American conditions.
Truly, I could not speak such lies. I knew that the American workers
in 1922 were generally better off than at the beginning of the World
War in 1914. I was aware, of course, that labor organization in this
country was far below the standard of labor organization in England,
Germany and France, that American labor was not organized as a
political weapon, that in some sections of the country and in certain
industries labor was even denied the right to organize, and that
radicals were always baited. But Leavenworth was not Siberia. And by
no stretch of the imagination could the United States be compared to
Czarist Russia.
How, then, could I stand before the gigantic achievement of the Russian
revolution and lie? What right had I to tell these people, who had gone
through a long death struggle to conquer their country for themselves,
that the American revolution was also in travail? What could _I_
presume to tell them? I told them that it was a great honor for me to
be there to behold the triumph of their great revolution. I told them
that I felt very insignificant and dumb before that wonderful thing. I
said that I had come to Russia to learn something, to see with my own
eyes and try to write a little of what I had seen.
Invariably I was questioned: "And what about the American revolution?"
When I replied I think it was a long way off, the audiences did not
like me to say that. I must admit that the Russians in those days were
eager to be deceived. I remember that I was asked to attend a large
and important meeting of Young Communists. When I had finished talking
the president got up and said: "Comrade, we appreciate what you feel
about our revolution, but we want you to tell us about the American
revolution. When will there be the American revolution?"
It was a direct question and I answered directly. I said that I
could not prophesy about an American revolution; but that perhaps if
the American ruling class started a wholesale suppression of labor
organizations, if the people had to read radical literature in secret,
if the radicals had to hold all their meetings in secret, if the
liberals and radicals who agitated for more civil liberties and the
rights of the working class were deported to the Philippines, then
possibly in ten or fifteen years America might develop a situation
similar to that in Russia in 1905.
The interpreter, a comrade commander in the navy, asked if he should
translate me literally. I said "Word for word." And when he had
finished there was no sound of applause. That was the first time that I
was not applauded when I spoke, but I preferred that.
The young president of the Young Communists took the platform:
"Comrade," he said, "you are a defeatist. The American revolution
cannot be so far away. But if that is your opinion, we command you
at once to do your part and help make the revolution." I said to the
interpreter: "Tell the young comrade that I am a poet."
After the meeting my friend Comrade Venko said to me: "You should
have told them the American revolution is right around the corner.
That's what they want to hear." (He had lived many years in England
and had acquired some Anglicisms.) I said, "You know I read somewhere
that Lenin said that it is necessary to face facts and tell the truth
always."
"Yes, Comrade," said Venko, "but Lenin is Lenin and we are just
ordinary mortals."
Yet in spite of my obstinacy I was still everywhere demanded. When the
American Negro delegate was invited to attend meetings and my mulatto
colleague went, the people asked: "But where is the _chorny_ (the
black)?" The mulatto delegate said: "Say, fellow, you're all right for
propaganda. It's a pity you'll never make a disciplined party member."
"Bigger shots than you have said the same thing," I replied. Zinoviev
had referred to me as a non-partisan. "My destiny is to travel a
different road."
We were sitting in on the discussions as to whether there should be
an illegal or legal Communist party in America, and on the Negro in
American life. I was there not only as a writer, but I was given
the privileges of a special delegate. One thing sticks in my memory
about that American delegation in Moscow. It had the full support of
the Finnish Federation and the Russian Federation of America. The
representatives of these organizations voted _en bloc_, rallying to the
support of an illegal party. The argument of the Yankee representatives
of the legal group was unanswerable, but they were outvoted every time
by the foreign federations. The Finnish and the Russian federations
were not only the most highly organized units of the American party,
but, so I was informed, they contributed more than any other to the
party chest. They controlled because they had the proper organization
and the cash.
I said to the mulatto delegate: "That's what Negroes need in American
politics--a highly organized all-Negro group. When you have that--a
Negro group voting together like these Finns and Russians--you will
be getting somewhere. We may feel inflated as _individual_ Negroes
sitting in on the councils of the whites, but it means very little if
our people are not organized. Otherwise the whites will want to tell
us what is right for our people even against our better thinking.
The Republicans and the Democrats do the same thing. They give a few
plum places to leading Negroes as representatives of the race and our
people applaud vicariously. But we remain politically unorganized.
What we need is our own group, organized and officered entirely by
Negroes, something similar to the Finnish Federation. Then when you
have your own group, your own voting strength, you can make demands
on the whites; they will have more respect for your united strength
than for your potential strength. Every other racial group in America
is organized as a group, except Negroes. I am not an organizer or an
agitator, but I can see what is lacking in the Negro group."
* * * * *
I listened to James Cannon's fighting speeches for a legal Communist
party in America. Cannon's manner was different from Bill Haywood's or
Foster's. He had all the magnetism, the shrewdness, the punch, the bag
of tricks of the typical American politician, but here he used them in
a radical way. I wondered about him. If he had entered Democratic or
Republican politics, there was no barrier I could see that could stop
him from punching his way straight through to the front ranks.
I think Trotsky was the first of the big Russians to be convinced that
there should be a legal Communist party in America, then Rakovsky and
finally Zinoviev, a little reluctantly. Bukharin was for the illegal
group. He said: "Remember what Jack London has told us about the terror
and secret organization in America in his _Iron Heel_." That was so
rare that I had to smile. While Cannon was informing the Russians about
actual conditions in America, Bukharin was visualizing the America of
Jack London's _Iron Heel_. Bukharin always did make me think of that
line about some men having greatness thrust upon them. I believe that
Lenin said of Bukharin, as Frank Harris said of H.G. Wells, that he
could not think. Yet Bukharin was the author of the A B C of Communism,
which once had a big vogue among the radicals.
At last even I was asked my opinion of an illegal Communist party
in America. I tried to get excused, saying that as I was not an
official delegate or a politician, but merely a poet, I didn't think
my opinion was worth while. But as my colleague the mulatto was for
the illegal party, I suppose they needed a foil. So then I said that
although I had no experience of the actual conditions of social life
in Czarist Russia, I believed there was no comparison between them and
American conditions today. There were certain democratic privileges
such as a limited freedom of the press and a limited right of free
speech that our governing classes had had to concede because they
were the necessary ingredients of their own system of society. And
American radicals could generally carry on open propaganda under those
democratic privileges. Our Upton Sinclairs, Eugene Debs's, Max Eastmans
and Mother Jones's might be prosecuted and imprisoned for a specific
offense against the law, but they were not banished for their radical
ideas to an American Siberia. And I said I thought that the only place
where illegal and secret radical propaganda was necessary was among
the Negroes of the South.
What I said about the Negroes of the South was more important than I
imagined, and precipitated the Negro question. The Negro question came
under the division of the Eastern Bureau, of which Sen Katayama was an
active official. Because of his American experience and his education
among Negroes, Sen Katayama was important as a kind of arbiter between
black and white on the Negro question. It was an unforgettable
experience to watch Katayama in conference. He was like a little brown
bulldog with his jaws clamped on an object that he wouldn't let go. He
apparently forgot all about nice human relationships in conference.
Sen Katayama had no regard for the feelings of the white American
comrades, when the Negro question came up, and boldly told them so. He
said that though they called themselves Communists, many of them were
unconsciously prejudiced against Negroes because of their background.
He told them that really to understand Negroes they needed to be
educated about and among Negroes as he had been.
Think not that it was just a revolutionary picnic and love feast in
Moscow in the fifth year of Lenin! One of the American delegates
was a southerner or of southern extraction. An important Bolshevik
facetiously suggested to him that to untangle the Negro problem, black
and white should intermarry. "Good God!" said the American, "if Jesus
Christ came down from Heaven and said that in the South, he would be
lynched." The Bolshevik said: "Jesus Christ wouldn't dare, but Lenin
would."
Also I remember Walton Newbold who was the first Communist candidate
elected to the British House of Commons. Saklatvala, the Indian Parsee,
had announced himself a Communist only after he had been elected as an
independent, but Walton Newbold was the first candidate of the British
Communist Party. Just after his election to Parliament Newbold came to
Moscow, while the Fourth Congress of International Communism was in
session. For any reader who might not understand why a Communist member
of the British Parliament should go to Moscow, I may explain that by
the parallel of a cardinal going to Rome after receiving his hat.
It was a big day for the little insignificant delegation of British
Communists when Newbold arrived in Moscow. Of that triumphant arrival,
one incident sticks more in my memory. I was informed that a member
of the Chinese Young Communists, who was attending the Congress, met
Newbold in the lobby of the Lux Hotel. He went up to Comrade Newbold to
congratulate him and began: "Comrade Newbold--"
"Hello, Chink," Newbold cut in.
"But Comrade Newbold, I am not a Chink."
"Who told you that you weren't?" said Comrade Newbold as he turned away.
In a little while the incident had flashed like an arrow through
Communist circles in Moscow. The young Chinese was a member of an old
Chinese clan and had been educated in America. At that time Bolshevik
eyes were fixed on China. Chinese soldiers made up some of the crack
units of the Red army when Great Britain was supporting the White war
against the Reds and tightening the blockade against Russia. I remember
Radek's saying to me: "We are pinning our hopes on China more than any
other country. If we can make China Red, we will conquer the world."
I don't know if that incident of the young Chinese and the first
Communist member of the British Parliament ever reached the ears of the
big Bolsheviks. I do know, however--I got it from a good source--that
the big Bolsheviks gave Newbold a hell of a skating over the Communist
ice of Moscow. Newbold returned to the Parliament of British gentlemen
and finally drifted over to the capitalist side.
I was asked to write a series of articles on the Negro group for
_Izvestia_, the Moscow organ of the Soviets. Thus I came to meet
Steklov, the editor-in-chief. Steklov was a huge man with a leonine
head, more picturesque than intelligent. He told me that he was
interested in Negroes being won over to the cause of Communism
because they were a young and fresh people and ought to make splendid
soldiers. I didn't relish that remark out of the mouth of a Communist.
So many other whites had said the same thing--that Negroes make good
cannon fodder when they were properly led--led by whites to the black
slaughter. That filled me with resentment. The head of the French
General Staff had proclaimed to the world the same thing, that France
with its African empire had an army of a hundred millions. When
Trotsky, the chief of all the Bolshevik fighting forces talked to me
about Negroes he spoke wisely. Trotsky was human and universal in his
outlook. He thought of Negroes as people like any other people who were
unfortunately behind in the march of civilization.
Karl Radek was one of the Big Five of the Politbureau, which
decided Bolshevik policy in those days. He invited me to dinner at
his apartment in the Kremlin along with the Negro delegate of the
American C.P. Radek wanted to know if I had a practical policy for the
organization of American Negroes. I said that I had no policy other
than the suggestion of a Negro _Bund_, that I was not an organizer or
an agitator and could not undertake or guarantee any practical work of
organization.
The Negro delegate said that I was a poet and a romantic. I said I was
not as romantic as he and his illegal party with their secret names
and their convention in the wilds of Michigan. Radek laughed, and as I
looked at his face set in a thick circle of hair I thought how much he
resembled a red spider. Radek said that the Communists should adopt a
friendly attitude to all writers who were in sympathy with the soviets.
For example, Upton Sinclair, he thought, would be a valuable asset to
the revolution if the Communists knew how to handle and use him. The
mulatto said that Upton Sinclair was a bourgeois Socialist.
"Oh, no, no," said Radek, "I insist that is not the attitude to take.
Upton Sinclair is a powerful writer with an enormous influence, and
the American Communists should make use of his influence, even though
Sinclair is not a Communist. Now with our Gorky--" At this point an
infant wailed and Radek said, "My baby comes first." He left the room,
to return a few minutes later with the maid, who brought in the baby.
Radek and Mrs. Radek kissed and fondled the child. The maid then
brought the child to the mulatto, who touched its hand and patted its
hair. From the mulatto she brought the child to me, but it shrank away,
hid its face, and began to cry. Radek was interested and told the maid
to take the child to the mulatto again. The mulatto took the child in
his arms and it stopped crying, but when the maid tried me again, the
child hid its face and cried. The maid retired with the child, and
Radek said: "Now I understand the heart of the difference between white
and black in America. It is fear. The Americans are like children,
afraid of black complexion, and that is why they lynch and burn the
Negro." I told Radek that his deduction was wrong; that in the South,
where Negroes were lynched and burned, the black complexion was not a
strange thing to the whites, and that the majority of the children of
the better classes of the South were nursed from their birth by black
women, and that those children were extremely fond of their black
foster mothers. Radek said that that was a strange thing.
XVII
Literary Interest
The Congress ended and with a happy relief I turned from political
meetings to social and literary affairs. The majority of the delegates
had left, but I remained in Moscow writing. I was magnificently paid
for poems and articles and became a front-page feature. Sometimes what
I received in rubles for an article amounted when I figured it out to
fifty American dollars. I had plenty of money to spend for food and
cigarettes and even to frequent the cabarets. And besides, I was saving
my fare to return to America.
I had no idea that I was being paid as a literary celebrity until one
afternoon when I went to a newspaper office to receive my check. There
I met an interesting Russian journalist. He was a titled person, a
Count Something. After the revolution he had discarded his title, but
since the Nep he had resumed it and signed himself Count. He remarked
to me facetiously that perhaps his title of the old economic policy
might help him to a better place under the New Economic Policy.
When I drew my check he looked at it and said: "Why, if they paid me
one-tenth of what they pay you I would be rich. I could go to the
casino and gamble and the cabarets to dance and wine."
"Why," I said, "I thought you got as much as I got."
"No," he said, "I couldn't, for you are a guest writer, a big
writer--_bolshoi! bolshoi! bolshoi!_" The interpreter who accompanied
me was annoyed and he said something to the Count, who immediately
clamped up. That, _bolshoi! bolshoi! bolshoi!_ (big! big! big!) was
sweet music in my ears and an inspiration. But it also stirred up a
hell of discontent within me. Why should I be "big" translated into
Russian? It was because I was a special guest of the Soviets, a good
subject for propaganda effect, but inflated beyond my actual literary
achievement. That was not enough for me. I felt that if I were to be
_bolshoi_ as a literary artist in a foreign language, I should first
make a signal achievement in my native adopted language, English.
I met some of the notable Russian writers: Chukovsky, Boris Pilnyak,
Eugene Zamiatin, Mayakovsky. I was invited to read at literary
gatherings. My audiences were always enthusiastic and applauding, and
also sometimes critical. "_Tovarish_," I was often told, "your poems
are not proletarian." I replied, "My poetry expresses my feelings." I
shocked the pure proletarian intellectuals and I was proud that I was
a privileged person in Russia, and in a position to shock them. One
night I was invited to the Arbat to hear the proletarian poets read and
discuss their compositions. Without understanding the language I was
able to appreciate certain poems from their swing and movement and the
voice of the reciter. And I had a good interpreter who rendered some
into English for me. After each poem was delivered there was a general
discussion of it. I was particularly pleased with the poem of a slim
young man in a coarse peasant smock buttoned up to his chin, and with
a worried, unhappy expression in his sensitive features. I knew at
once that he was a peasant become proletarian like myself. He gave a
charming poem. Even before translation I knew from its communicative
color tone and the soft threne running through it like a silver chord
that it expressed an individual longing for the life of the country,
perhaps the ways that nevermore would be.