personality had unusually excited me, because I rarely applaud. I liked
that poet with the intellectual anxiety of his face showing clearly
that he was a little bewildered by that world-moving social shake-up.
That expression was real, more real to me than the automatic enthusiasm
of his fellow poets which seemed to me less sincere. They all jumped
on him. "Alexis, you are not a proletarian poet!" And they criticized
his subject matter. So I asked my interpreter to let me say a word. I
said I thought it was natural for a man who had lived in the country to
express his longing for it, whether he was a bourgeois or a proletarian.
Mayakovsky was then the premier proletarian poet. Chukovsky, the
popular author of _Crocodile_ and other children's books, did not
have the highest opinion of Mayakovsky. He told me that before the
revolution Mayakovsky had been a futurist and that he used to wear
fantastic clothes and had proclaimed his poems at the court of the
Czar. Now Mayakovsky was a thundering proletarian poet. He recited one
of his poems for me. It sounded like the prolonged bellow of a bull. He
very kindly presented me with a signed copy of his latest book. Also
he presented me to his wife, and said that she desired to dance a jazz
with me. She was a handsome woman of an Arctic whiteness and appeared
as if she had just stepped proudly out of a Dostoyevsky novel. We went
to a gypsy cabaret and danced a little, but I am afraid that I did not
measure up to the standard of Aframerican choreography. Mayakovsky told
me that his great ambition was to visit America. I said I thought he
would be a big success there in Russian costume, declaiming his poems
in his trumpet voice.
The contemporary Russian poetry of the period which I liked best
was that of the peasant poet Yessenin. His intimate friend, Zonov,
translated some of his poems, and I was enchanted by their lyric
simplicity and profundity. Zonov was always hoping that Yessenin and I
would meet, but we never did. Just about the time when I disembarked at
Petrograd, Yessenin and Isadora Duncan were landing in New York. And
Yessenin did not return to Russia until after I had left in June of
1923.
Zonov held a place either executive or artistic at the Meyerhold
Theater, which I visited frequently, for there was a congenial gang
there. He often invited me to a private little feast in his den, where
he served sweet Caucasian wine and caviar and sometimes champagne.
Always with him was a little actress whom he fancied, but who did
not seem to love him too much. Zonov looked like a tired professor,
and he was always bewailing the absence of Yessenin. He exhibited a
snapshot of Yessenin that he carried in his pocket book, and I was
startled by its resemblance to the strange dancer I had known in New
York. Zonov said unlovely things of Isadora Duncan, because she had
married Yessenin and taken him from his friends. He said that Yessenin
had proclaimed to them all that he did not love Isadora. But he had
married her to get out of Russia, to see Europe and America. I said I
did not consider love as always necessary, and that sometimes it might
be expedient for a woman to save a man from his male friends. Zonov
translated what I said to the actress and she screamed with laughter.
Meyerhold's was the revolutionary constructivist theater, which did the
most daring things in dramatic production. There were no curtains.
The audience saw clear through to backstage and watched the actors
waiting to take their parts and come up to and retire from the front
of the stage. The plan was novel. Meyerhold himself was a fanatic
crusader in his ardor to make a great revolutionary theater express
the revolutionary social system. All the symbols of the machine system
were assembled on the stage: dynamos, cranes, scaffolding and turbines,
until it resembled a regular workshop. Meyerhold said to me: "We need
now great revolutionary plays and playwrights to make my theater
the unique dramatic expression of the revolution." I had to talk to
Meyerhold through an interpreter, but he impressed me as being more
romantic than practical with his idea of making the stage the unique
expression of the factory. I felt that after all the worker's life is
not limited to the factory and should never be.
I was interested in the Moscow workers' attitude to the Meyerhold
Theater. Whole blocks of seats were given to the factories and the
barracks, but the theater, which was not very large, was never
full. Yet the plays which Meyerhold put on were technically highly
interesting. Vastly exciting to me was the presentation of _The
Inspector General_, by Gogol. And unforgettable was one realistic scene
of another play, in which the Czar was sitting on his chamber pot, with
the imperial crown painted big upon it. But the workers and soldiers
really preferred the ballet of the Bolshoi theater, the Moscow art
theaters, the expressionist theater and the ordinary vulgar theaters.
Whenever the workers received free tickets for the above-named theaters
they never missed; workers and soldiers always filled them. But the
audience of the Meyerhold Theater was of the intelligentsia--students
and professional people. While the workers and soldiers showed a
distinct preference for the straight familiar entertainment, it was
the intelligentsia that was avid of revolutionary drama. The situation
made me think of a Frenchman's saying that most of the work of the
experimental artists was not intended to enlighten the working class,
but to "_épater la bourgeoisie_."
I was invited to dinner by Lunarcharsky, the Commissar of Education
and of Arts. He was one of the most flamboyant orators of the Soviet
Union and also a talented playwright. I told him a little of the little
I knew about education in general in America and Negro education in
particular, and I seized the opportunity to mention the Russian theater
and the theater of Meyerhold. I remarked that it was interesting that
the workers and soldiers seemed to prefer the old ballet to the new
experimental theater. Lunarcharsky said that in the early days of the
revolution some had desired to suppress the ballet, but he had held
out against it. He considered the ballet a great form of art and what
he did was to give the workers and peasants and soldiers the chance to
enjoy it, which they hadn't had under the old régime. He had conserved
and subsidized the best of the classical theaters for the entertainment
of the people. But also he had granted subsidies to the experimental
theaters to give them their chance to experiment in creating their
best. Lunarcharsky was a wise mediator. It is related that when the
Moscow masses, excited to high resentment against the Russian Orthodox
Church, attempted to destroy the wonderful Cathedral of Vasilly
Blazhenny, they were stopped by the intervention of Lunarcharsky. There
was not a day of my stay in Moscow that my eyes failed to be glad in
contemplation of Ivan the Terrible's super-byzantine burnt offering to
humanity. And Lunarcharsky in Moscow appeared like a guardian angel to
me because he had made it possible for my eyes to see that glory.
XVIII
Social Interest
My constant companion and interpreter was Venko, a big, strong,
gloriously boisterous and comparatively young Russian. He had lived
for years in an English Midland town and had left an English wife
and children there to come to Russia after the revolution. The only
sentimental thing in his mind was his family in England. Sometimes he
was perplexed thinking about them. He said he was sure they wouldn't
like living in Russia and he had no desire to return to England. He
was not sentimental about his substitute Russian wife. He said she had
married him only to get good food and a good apartment to live in. He
was of peasant origin and she seemed to be from the poor professional
class. Their living room constantly reminded me of that of the poor
officer in _The Brothers Karamozov_. It was like a seamstress's place,
with a sewing machine installed and scraps of cloth lying carelessly
about, from which one's clothes picked up bits of thread, and it had a
peculiar odor like that of clothes being washed with brown soap. But
she was a good wife. Sometimes I stayed at Venko's house, after we
had finished at a meeting and resorted to a café to drink vodka. And
however late we got there, his wife would get up to serve food.
Venko was an interpreter in the O.G.P.U. He was not connected with
the intelligence work. He didn't like office work. He preferred to
agitate crowds. He was a marvelously gesticulating, noisy and frothy
agitator, but there was not much substance in his phrases. And if you
don't give Russians some meat to chew on when you talk to them, they
soon tire of you, however brilliant your fireworks may be. If you have
something to say they will listen for long hours upon hours, as patient
as sheep, even if you are speaking in a strange language. And afterward
they will ruminate on it with satisfaction through more long hours of
interpreting. Venko was a good enough interpreter. My stay in Moscow
was a vacation for him, of which we made a picnic. He was unorthodox
about life, whether it was old or new, even as I, and he made the most
unguarded and biting criticisms of things and personalities in his
profane and boisterous Russian way.
The Moscow Soviet made me an honorary member at one of its meetings. A
few days later Venko accompanied me to the office of the Soviet, where
I was to receive the little red book that would make me even a more
privileged personage than I was. The card was made out by a comrade
clerk and my photograph was affixed. Then Venko and I were ushered into
the presence of Commissar Kamenev, the president of the Moscow Soviet,
for him to affix his signature.
Kamenev was extremely dignified and perfectly attired in black, with
white collar and black tie, the best-dressed Bolshevik official
(according to the smart European standard) that I had met. He welcomed
me with a courteous smile, signed my card, shook my hand, and said he
was proud to deliver it to me in the name of the Moscow Soviet. Venko
translated. The simplicity of Kamenev's official dignity moved me
very much, for in his fine-fitting conventional clothes, I might have
mistaken him for a responsible banker, or a Protestant clergyman, or a
high-ranking continental diplomat, anything but what Venko startled me
by suggesting.
For as we got outside Venko exploded: "Good God, Comrade! I have seen
the Czar!"
"What do you mean, the Czar?" I said.
"Kamenev in the place of the Czar. The same clothes, the same manner of
wearing his beard! Good God, Comrade, a Jew in the place of the Czar!"
Kamenev's features were indeed remarkably like the Czar's.
"Why, don't you like Jews?" I asked in astonishment. It was the first
anti-Jewish sentiment I had heard from a Russian Communist.
"No, Comrade, I won't lie to you; I don't like Jews."
"Are you a pogromist?" I asked.
"Good God, Comrade, no. I fought the White-guard pogromists in the
Ukraine and was wounded. The White guards started pogroms against the
Jews. I fought them and fought the pogroms too, for pogroms are a crime
against our Communist party. But I don't like the Jews, Comrade. All
the Nep men are Jews."
"All?" I exclaimed.
"Well, if not all, nearly all. And all the money changers of the Black
Bourse are Jews."
I record this conversation because it was one of the impressive
and unforgettable things I heard from a Communist in Russia. I was
particularly impressed because, as a member of a minority group
in America that was the victim of blind and bitter prejudice, I
was interested to know if the prejudice against the Jews had been
automatically swept away with the Czarist régime.
I was interested, because I did not hold to the sentimental idea that
the deep-rooted prejudices of a people could be eradicated overnight.
What the Bolsheviks had accomplished was to put a stop to the vicious
political exploitation of group and race prejudice. I don't think the
saintliest human being could ask more. Individual prejudice is one
of the most natural sentiments. It is easy enough for an individual
prejudice to become a family prejudice, for family ties are real. And
it is also easy for such prejudice to spread to a group, for groups
exist and the majority of human beings are fundamentally tribal.
I was not at all shocked by Venko's revelation. I was merely
enlightened. If he were an intellectual Communist, he could not have
spoken to me as he did. I preferred to go around with him, because I
could learn more.
One evening Zonov invited me to a party which he did not want Venko to
know about, for it was a bourgeois party. The guests were celebrating a
holiday of the old régime which had been abolished by the Bolsheviks.
The party of that little remnant of the Russian bourgeoisie was
something not to be missed. It was even more Russian, noisy, and
elastic than the proletarian parties, for these people did not have to
bother about correct Communist conduct. Maybe there was a flickering
note of futility, of despair, which made them more reckless, because,
unlike the Communists, they had no future. The limited luxury of the
Nep for the moment was theirs to enjoy. And they were giving themselves
to the moment unforgettably, as you might give yourself to a page of
Chekhov.
Russian life seems to blow through space like a big breeze, and this
remnant of a bourgeois society was no less a part of that big breeze.
How they ate and danced and chattered in loud harmony! Two huge fruit
cakes reared themselves like wedding cakes on a sideboard, and there
were platters of caviar, sturgeon, salads, cheeses, every delicious
food to tickle the palate, and gallons of Caucasian wine and vodka to
wash it down.
I was introduced all round as a guest of Russia. They all knew that I
was a guest of the Soviets, and if they wanted to make it a guest of
Russia instead, I had no objection to the added distinction. One very
beautiful and proud-looking young woman got the back of her hand up to
my lips with one of those exquisite gestures that only people who are
born to them can make, I guess.
I made the best bow that was natural to me for that honor. But the
young woman was not satisfied with my bow. She stamped her foot
petulantly, though not unkindly, and rubbed my nose with the perfumed
back of her hand. I was convinced that something more was expected of
me, so I reached up my hand and took hers.
She led me to a seat and said rapidly in a voice that sounded like fine
tinkling glass: "Why did you refuse to kiss my hand? Do you think it
is degrading for a Communist to kiss a lady's hand?" She spoke lovely
English.
"No, _Tovarish_--"
"Please don't call me by that disgusting name," she interrupted. "I am
a _barishna_."
"Well, _Barishna_, then, if that is your preference, I did not kiss
your hand simply because I don't know how to do it well. Nobody I know
kisses hands in America."
The _Barishna_ conceded an indulgent smile. "Tell me," she said, "do
you like our Russia--Moscow and Petrograd?" I said that I did.
"As much as London and Paris and Berlin?" she asked.
I said, "More than London and Berlin. But I do not know Paris."
"I believe you," she said. "I know London and Paris and Berlin, but I
love Petrograd more. Now there is no Petrograd." "But you have Moscow.
Moscow is more beautiful," I said. "Oh, but Petrograd was magnificent
before the revolution." I could never imagine Petrograd being more
beautiful than Moscow, but so many Russians said it was.
Said the _barishna_, "I tell you, I don't like the foreign Communists.
You come here to gaze at us as if we were strange animals in a zoo, to
mock at and insult us in our distress. That is hateful."
"_Barishna_," I said, "I don't understand. What do you mean? The
foreign Communists come here bringing greetings from the workers abroad
to the workers of Russia. They do not come here to mock and insult, but
to praise and learn about the revolution."
"Oh, they do mock at us," she insisted. "My young brother works in one
of the important departments and he heard a foreign Communist boasting
that he had slept all night with a lady of title for ten cents. Now
isn't that a mean and despicable thing to say? If a real man could buy
a lady of quality for ten cents, shouldn't he be ashamed to mention it?"
"I guess so, _Barishna_," I said. "I don't care anything about the
difference between titled and untitled loving."
"But you do think it was an unspeakable thing for a _civilized_ man
to say, don't you?" She stressed the word _civilized_ as if I were a
savage in her sight and she was eager to hear the opinion of a savage
upon a civilized person.
"But, _Barishna_," I said, "the men of your class used to do worse
things than that to the women of the class of the man who said he
possessed a titled lady for ten cents. They did it to weak and ignorant
girls and often didn't even pay the price of ten cents."
"Oh no," said the _barishna_, "no _gentleman_ does that."
"But they do, _Barishna_. Many of your gentlemen still exercise even
the medieval _droits de seigneur_ in a different way. That's what
Tolstoy's _Resurrection_ is all about."
"So you read our Tolstoy? You like our Russian literature? Oh, I am
glad that you do. They have destroyed everything, but they cannot
destroy our Russian literature."
I was very embarrassed. Most of the bourgeois people I had met had
refrained from saying anything against the Communists, even though they
did not praise them. Suddenly the _barishna_ said, "I want to leave
Russia; I have friends in England. Would you marry me so that I could
leave the country with you--just a formal arrangement?" I hesitated and
said that I didn't know that I could.
"But many of the foreigners have married Russian girls and got them
through to Berlin," she said.
"Communists too?" I asked.
"Yes, Communists too."
"_Barishna_," I said, "I am sorry. I couldn't shoulder even the formal
responsibility. And besides, I am not a Communist. I don't even know
yet how I am going to get out of Russia myself."
In my rare contacts with members of the expropriated classes I felt
the weirdest sensations, as if pages out of Tolstoy, Turgenieff,
Dostoyevsky, Artzybashev and Chekhov were suddenly patterned and
peopled with actual life.
* * * * *
Many of the people I knew from the International Club in London were
in Russia, some as visiting delegates, while others were permanently
settled. Arthur McManus was one of the English-speaking delegates whose
company I found congenial, and we were often together, although I found
it difficult to keep up with his gargantuan boozing, which perhaps
finally knocked him out dead. Both of us were guests of the Soviet
fleet at Kronstadt and were photographed together. McManus and I had
our points of difference, and sometimes when we were vodka-heated, our
tongues flew sharply at each other.
McManus was one of the men who had gunned the hardest after Sylvia
Pankhurst. He still felt venomous about her. "Intellectually
dishonest," was his pet phrase for describing her. I said I thought
Sylvia Pankhurst was as honest as any imperial Briton could be. And I
really preferred Pankhurst to persons like Lansbury, and perhaps even
to McManus himself. McManus shot up like a rabbit (he was a tiny man)
and demanded in his remarkably beautiful Glasgow brogue if I meant to
"insinuate" (that was the word he used) that he was an imperialist.
I said that I had not said "imperialist," but "imperial," and that
all Britons were imperial by birth and circumstances because of the
nature of the political set-up of Britain. McManus asked if I did not
believe that there were really radical Britons. I said that no man
can be more radical than his system can stand. McManus said I was a
bloody bigoted black nationalist, and his _b_'s had such a wonderful
ring (he stammered a little) that it made me laugh and laugh until both
of us fell into a prolonged fit of black-and-white laughter. It was a
good satisfying feeling to see McManus laugh aloud, for there was a
perpetually crucified expression on his countenance that all the Scotch
whisky and Russian vodka in the world could not dispel.
McManus did not appear to like my O.G.P.U. friend and companion,
Venko. It was well known among us that Venko was an interpreter and
translator for the O.G.P.U., but had nothing to do with the department
of investigations and arrests. Anyone with a little knowledge of
police organization knows that a police clerk has nothing to do
with the actual duties of policing. If Venko had been a secret agent
of the O.G.P.U. we would never have known that he worked in that
department. And I think I can nose out a secret agent whether he is
red or white. I spent a year of my early youth in a police department
in a position where I was in constant contact with all the branches of
the department. For my part I liked to have Venko along whenever I was
invited to a carousel among Communists. For Venko could beat anybody
carousing and I thought that if any issue were raised about the affair
afterward, Venko would be an excellent asset to have. Whenever I went
on a drinking bout with comrades I always saw that they got drunker
than myself.
It was necessary to do a little thinking while drinking and laughing.
For sometimes funny things happened. Some of the foreign comrades
seemed to enjoy playing at political intrigue, apparently without fully
realizing that political intrigue, to the Russians, was a serious and
dangerous thing. For instance, one of the youthful Indian delegates
occupied a room next to mine, and we often went down to our meals and
also over to the Comintern offices together. One morning when I called
for him his room was locked and there was a seal on the door. The
O.G.P.U. had arrested him during the night. Months later I met him in
Berlin under the most unusual circumstances, which I shall relate in
another place. There was also the young Whitechapel Jew whom I used
to know slightly at the International Club in London. He had come to
Russia as a youth delegate. But he wasn't functioning as anything when
I saw him. He told me fretfully that he had been denounced. One evening
he and I were on our way to a motion picture when a group of armed
police dramatically pounced upon him. They said something in Russian
and he must have answered satisfactorily, for they did not take him.
But he was scared, and said, "I am always scared." Shortly after that
incident he was gone too, and I never saw him again. When I reached
Berlin the following spring I met William Gallacher (now Communist
Member of Parliament) and asked him what had become of the boy. "He was
a spy," Gallacher said, "and he was fixed."
I said angrily, "But what have you in the little British Communist
Party for anybody to spy on?"
"More than you think," said Gallacher, with a mysterious nod of his
friendly head.
One night in Moscow I was invited to a celebration given by a minor
Communist official. The address had been written down for me and I had
to take somebody along to find it, as I did not know my way around
Moscow. So I asked Venko; but first we had to attend a meeting of
women workers at which he interpreted for me and we did not get to
the entertainment until very late. The large apartment was full of
comrades when we got there. I think the man who was throwing the treat
was a Finn and there were many Baltic types there, blonde and heavy of
movement and impassive of spirit. There was plenty of hard drinking,
but it was a dull atmosphere, nothing of the stimulating renascent
effervescence of the _barishna's_ evening. Venko stepped upon the scene
with a burst of boisterous enthusiasm, and drinking a big glass of
vodka, he took the center of the room and started speechifying, saying
there was a time for good comrades to fight, a time to work, and that
now was the time to be festive.
Venko was applauded, and from somewhere McManus came swaying like a
tipsy little imp, and pointing at Venko cried in a chanting voice:
"O.G.P.U.! O.G.P.U.! O.G.P.U.!" Venko laughed, and all of us. For he
and the others thought that McManus was merely putting over a joke
about his working for the O.G.P.U. But then McManus shouted in English,
"Spy! Spy! I am not going to stay here, I am going home. Spy!"
"What do you mean, Comrade?" Venko asked in amazement. "Did I ever spy
on you? Do you want to say that I am here spying on my comrades?" Venko
said something in Russian and everybody looked serious. But McManus
repeated "O.G.P.U. spy! O.G.P.U. spy!" A murderous look took possession
of Venko's face. "Comrade," he cried in a terrible voice, "if you don't
stop, I'll kill you; you hear? You're not drunk and irresponsible.
If you don't stop, I'll hit you, as little as you are." But McManus
shouted again: "O.G.P.U. spy! O.G.P.U.--"