Making Our Plans
The individual has yet to be born who can be perfectly just. Even
educated and cultured people find it difficult in any given set of
circumstances not to exhibit their predilections; prejudice will be the
last vice to disappear and toleration the last virtue to develop in any
large number of human beings. The most that the members of the British
Delegation would claim for themselves would be that each made a serious
and honest attempt to prepare his, or her, mind for straight looking
at, and hard thinking about, the great experiment with which we were
soon to come to close quarters.
We knew we were going to a land radically different from all the
European countries we had hitherto visited. We knew that serious
and amazing things were alleged to have taken place there. Whilst
we discounted most of the atrocity stories of the sensation-loving
newspapers, we realised that, since war was not merely a game nor
revolution a picnic, frightful things must have happened. We had very
definite views of the main principles embodied in the various Communist
manifestos which, from time to time, had mysteriously found their way
into this country. But we were solid in our conviction that, whatever
we found in Russia, good, bad or indifferent, it was the concern of the
Russians themselves, and became our business only when it was sought to
impose upon Great Britain the same things, without regard to the vital
differences between the two countries.
On the beautiful sea-trip from Stockholm to Reval we discussed with
one another the possibilities of our excursion. Our little Swedish
ship hugged the coast of Finland to avoid the many thousands of mines
said to be loose upon the waters between Sweden and Esthonia, and the
loveliness of a myriad wooded islands amongst which we threaded our way
absorbed the best part of our interest until the open sea was reached.
“I wonder if we shall be allowed perfect freedom of action,” murmured
one of our number. “What shall we do if we find ourselves a sort of
Cook’s tourist party or the Royal Family?”
One was quite sure that, although we might be the guests of the
Government, we should be allowed to go where we liked and do what we
pleased. Another thought we should see as little as the Royal Family
sees when it takes an excursion amongst the people. A third welcomed
the idea of a conducted party because of the language difficulty. A
fourth expressed the view that we should ask for our passports and
return home at once if we were placed under any kind of restraint. It
was finally decided that we should wait and see!
After thirty hours of pleasant sailing, four only in the open sea, we
entered the harbour at Reval in a half-moon, just in time to see the
last rays of light from the setting sun make resplendent the gilded
domes of the churches. Town and harbour appeared quaint and exquisite
in the fading evening light, and the frank voices of the forty or fifty
Esthonian Socialists who met us robbed the strangeness of its slight
discomfort. These pleasant friends were representative of all the
various Socialist sections in Reval--Left, Right and Centre; and whilst
they turned cold looks on one another, they united in warmth of welcome
to us. Before we left the town we had supped with the Right and dined
with the Left and insisted on taking an indiscriminate pleasure with
all at the concert which the great Chaliapine gave that same evening in
the big public hall of the city.
In the Hotel Petrograd, in Reval, sits Gowkovsky, the Bolshevik
representative, through whose competent hands pass all communications
between Russia and the rest of Europe. He is a short man with brown
beard and kind, shrewd eyes and very pleasant manner. He spread a royal
banquet for us which included amongst its provisions the prohibited
vodka, bidding us drink to the social revolution in a beverage which
the Revolutionary Government, following the example of the Czar, has
had the wisdom to forbid. The properties of this fiery drink must be of
a very peculiar character, for one of the Delegates, who is not a total
abstainer, has since commended the late Czar’s ordinance abolishing the
drink traffic and has publicly declared that the coming Revolution in
Great Britain will have to be accompanied by the total prohibition of
strong drink.
The absence of drinking-shops and of public drinking, and consequently
of men and women the worse for liquor is a commendable feature of
social life in Russia, and accounts for many good things, probably
for the Revolution itself, almost certainly for the almost unvaried
success of the Red armies. Of course there is wine in the country,
sweet champagne, red Caucasian wines and the golden wines of Persia;
but these are for the sick and are not accessible to ordinary folk.
A doctor’s certificate is necessary to secure them. Almost certainly
there are illicit stills in the country districts, and speculators are
able to get hold of spirituous liquors illegally; but it would be an
entirely hopeless business for the ordinary man or woman to try to
discover strong drink anywhere, or to buy the expensive light wines
that here and there can be discovered amongst the bottles of raspberry
vinegar and lemonade. And the attitude of the Government to the
question of drinking is evidenced in the fact that if a railway worker
is discovered drunk, having possessed himself illegally of vodka, he is
promptly shot.
Having feasted and entertained us to good Russian music, admonished
us and put our passports in order, the kind-hearted Gowkovsky packed
us off to Petrograd in charge of half a dozen or more of his trusty
henchmen. Several of these were Jews--clever, brainy, shrewd, dogmatic;
excellent linguists, perfect interpreters.
One of the facts we marked very soon in our adventurous career was
the large number of Jews who occupy positions of trust and influence
in the Revolutionary Administration. We remarked upon it to the Jews
themselves. We were informed that only two of the seventeen People’s
Commissars were Jews, but that very considerable numbers indeed were
employed in administrative posts, both nationally and locally, and by
the Extraordinary Commission. As the membership and activity of large
numbers of Jews is a feature of continental Socialist societies,
particularly in Central and Eastern Europe, it is worth considering for
a moment why this should be so. And in view of the deplorable tendency
all over Europe towards Anti-Semitism, it is an obligation upon
everybody to try sympathetically to understand the character and point
of view of the Jew in Europe.
He forms, in the first place, a very large part of the population of
all the great cities and smaller towns of Central Europe and Russia.
He is, generally speaking, the best-educated part of the population
where educational facilities have been open to him. The boycott of
ages and the cruelties of centuries have sharpened his wits, developed
his cunning, forced his energies into less desirable channels, and
caused him to regard the men outside his race as his enemies against
whom he must take care continuously to defend and protect himself. The
Jewish mind is hard, logical and dogmatic. The Jew’s temperament is
artistic but his training is utilitarian. He is passionately interested
in theory and will try to carry out his favourite one at all costs,
given the power. Having no country of his own, where he does not love
the country of his adoption he is more than usually international in
his viewpoint and regards race before nation, and both, less than his
theory of mankind. He has great powers of organisation. I speak of him
as I have known him and admired him in half the countries of Europe
and the United States of America.
Over a plastic, passive people like the typical indolent Russian he was
bound to have enormous power and influence. Said one of the best-known
Jewish leaders in Russia to me when I had gently complained of too much
discipline and too little freedom:
“But the Russian people are like children. They are not educated. They
know nothing. They have been accustomed for centuries to slavery and
dictation. Would you have us allow them to destroy themselves by their
own incapacity and inexperience? Would you give a vote to each of those
millions of ignorant peasants? It would be like putting a knife into
the hands of a baby.”
How familiar it all sounded to me, as reminiscences of the Woman
Suffrage fight in England came to my mind, and I recalled the fact that
this baby and carving-knife argument was one of the pet excuses for
denying women their freedom.
None the less is it true that the Russian people in the main are
unaccustomed to freedom, and by their nature and temperament are proper
material for the exercise of power by the educated, dominating Jew. It
would not be fair, however, to neglect to say that of those persons
who spoke to me privately in condemnation of the Bolsheviki, a very
considerable number, if not the majority, were also Jews. One is driven
to the conclusion that it is the activity and strength of his mind, and
not necessarily a proclivity for Bolshevist theory which is chiefly
responsible for the commanding position of the Jew in the political
affairs of Europe in general and of Russia in particular.
Another Jew, a fair-haired, blue-eyed Jew from the United States, met
us on the Russian frontier, and offered us greetings in the name of the
Soviet Republic. He was an interesting personality, whose history as a
leader of strikes in America he unfolded to us on the journey from the
frontier to Petrograd. He had a special train waiting for us, gaily
decorated with red bunting, fervent mottoes, and the green branches of
trees. The train was attended by a number of Red Guards and Bashkir
cavalrymen in gorgeous purple uniforms, with wonderful cloaks and long
swords. From Reval to Narwa we had been just a plain, ordinary Cook’s
Tourist Party. From the Russian frontier to the end of our visit we
were the Royal Family!
Perhaps the most thrilling and dramatic note was struck by the fixture
of a big red flag on the frontier. The sight of it was altogether
too much for some of our more ardent spirits. They burst rapturously
into song, first “The Internationalé” and then “The Red Flag,” the
favourite song of Socialists in Great Britain.
The people’s flag is deepest red,
It shrouded oft our martyred dead.
And ere the lips grew stiff and cold,
Their heart’s blood dyed its every fold.
Then raise the scarlet standard high.
Within its shade we’ll live or die;
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer,
We’ll keep the Red Flag flying here.
At last we were about to enter the country where the Red Flag had
become the national emblem, and was flying over every public building
in the cities of Russia. The thought thrilled like new wine.
Half-way to Petrograd deputations from Trade Unions and Soviets came
into the train and made complimentary speeches in a half-bashful
manner, to which suitable responses were made. What a pleasant modest
set of fellows they were, with big, blue innocent eyes and reluctant
unobtrusive manner. We liked them immensely. We liked the plain people
of Russia wherever we met them. At Petrograd itself a large company
met us although it was three o’clock in the morning, and we were told
that gigantic crowds had loitered about the station all the day in
expectation of our coming and in the hope of getting a glimpse at the
English strangers. We were at once motored to the quarters which had
been prepared for us, the palace of a Russian princess, and there, at
four o’clock in the morning, we sat down to a simple but sufficient
meal and received our welcome from the Trade Union officials who were
to be our hosts during our stay.
We were behind the “iron curtain” at last!