Investigation or Propaganda?
People in Russia appear to be able to live without sleep. At any rate
they never go to bed before the small hours of the morning. Very rarely
were we allowed to go to our rooms before two o’clock, and it was
frequently three o’clock in the morning. On entering Russia we were
asked to alter our watches by three hours, making the time so much in
advance of English time, and we used to console ourselves that it was
“really only midnight” when, almost too weary to stand, we staggered to
our rooms at this terribly un-English hour. Soon we became quite used
to the sight of little children playing about at eleven and twelve at
night, and to the spectacle of a ploughman ploughing his land at an
hour when it was difficult to say whether twilight or the dawn lighted
his labours. The hour of rising is correspondingly late, and breakfast
was seldom served earlier than 9.30 or 10 o’clock.
The first meal at a Russian table was naturally to be a matter of
interest to us. At this, the first, and at all subsequent meals, there
was an ample supply, though not a riotous abundance, of very simple
food. Every nerve had been strained to make the change from profusion
to scarcity as easy as possible. It was realised that it takes a long
time to get used to black bread after white, thin soup after thick, and
imitation tea after the real thing.
Real tea and coffee are well-nigh unprocurable in Russia at present.
Yet they procured these for the British guests. These good things came
to us, we were informed, because great stores of them had been captured
from Judenitch who had received them through the British War Office.
For our hosts this fact added a piquancy to their hospitality, which a
sufficiently developed sense of humour enabled us to understand.
Our breakfast consisted of a sufficient supply of brown bread, hard
but not unpleasant to the taste, butter and thin slices of cheese.
On alternate mornings we had smoked fish or slices of ham. There was
abundance of tea served in glasses from the samovar, with sugar but
no milk. Occasionally there was coffee. We were served by a dignified
“tovarisch” (_tovarisch_ is Russian for “comrade”) who looked as though
he were a typical English butler, and who, I was credibly informed,
actually was a relic of the old régime. His was a stolid, grave face,
as became the servant of departed princes. What his thoughts were as
he moved quietly about the room I would have given many roubles to know.
At the head of the table, our brilliant little hostess in Petrograd,
sat Madame Angelica Balabanov. This lady is one of the most wonderful
linguists I have ever met. She seems to have all the languages on the
tip of her tongue. She is a speaker of enormous power and eloquence,
so eloquent indeed, and so fiery, that I am certain, given the right
kind of human material to work upon, she could make a revolution by
herself. Small wonder the Soviet Government wished to make her their
ambassador to Rome. No wonder at all that the Italians were too
frightened to have her. She loves Italy passionately. She looks like
an Italian with her dark skin, mysterious glowing eyes and twin plaits
of long black hair reaching far below her waist when uncoiled; and
with this appearance and her magic tongue, she might soon have won the
Italians for Bolshevism. She is one of the kindest of women in all
normal relationships. But I could well imagine her destroying her best
friend for the glory of Bolshevism, should such a sacrifice appear to
be necessary.
After that first breakfast the Delegation met in the bedroom of the
chairman to discuss our programme and the plans which we saw had been
prepared for us, and the methods of investigation we proposed to
adopt. There was a division of opinion about the latter, which hinged
upon the propriety or otherwise of delivering ourselves into the hands
of our hosts.
In numerous speeches, both public and private, we had been assured
not only of the warmth of our welcome, but of the intention of the
Bolsheviki to let us see everything--good, bad and indifferent. “We
have nothing whatever to hide, so why should you not be free to go
where you will and see what you wish.” This sounded splendid. We heaved
a sigh of relief. We had been in mortal terror of being a conducted
party.
The theory was, therefore, that we were to go where we pleased and
see what we chose and speak to whom we desired to speak; in short, to
have perfect freedom. But in practice this freedom was every whit as
illusory as the raising of the British blockade. As events transpired,
we were everywhere accompanied by representatives of the Authorities,
who were sent, it was said, partly to act as interpreters and partly to
protect us from counter-revolutionaries and Polish spies who might be
lurking about with bombs! The number of such persons who accompanied us
on most of our visits, whether to inspect a factory or a workshop or to
interview a Commissar, was seldom less than half a dozen and generally
was ten or even twenty. Sometimes as many as fifty people by actual
count accompanied us round a factory. They got fearfully in the way,
and often crowded out members of the Delegation eager to get close to
charts and maps and anxious to ask questions. But we were all very
good-humoured about this, because we realised that this was the first
time for five years that these people had been permitted to look upon
the face of the foreigner, and that a perfectly natural curiosity was
entitled to be satisfied.
It was not so much the number of persons who accompanied us that was
the trouble, although this host of followers gave our enterprise a
circus-like quality which some of us would have been glad to exchange
for a more business-like atmosphere. There is certainly a lack of
freedom in the feeling that one is being watched all the time, and
one’s words and actions and the people with whom one speaks noted
by gentlemen who hold positions in Government service, either in
connection with the Foreign Office or the Extraordinary Commission, as
was the case with several of our closest attendants.
But there were other factors which operated to place a check upon our
activities.
In the first place a programme of places to be visited and things to
be seen was presented to us which, if carried out only in part, would
have absorbed every second of our time and lessened still further the
number of hours to be devoted to sleep. The time-tables given to us
when we entered Petrograd and Moscow were simply staggering. “Can human
beings go through that and live?” we asked one another. We thought we
began to see some of the reasons why Russian men and women look ten
years older than they are--no sleep, too much tea, and this sort of
thing! Needless to say, we edited those programmes with much firmness
and vigour. And even so, some of us found it extremely difficult to get
as much time to ourselves as was necessary to take a bath or darn a
sock.
Another curious fact speedily unfolded itself. The real nature
of our mission to Russia appeared not to be understood. It was
believed, or the belief was affected, that we had come in the spirit
of full agreement with them, whereas we were there to enquire and
to inform ourselves. It was frequently suggested, both privately
and publicly, that “the representatives of the revolutionary
working-class movement in Great Britain had come to bring greetings
and assistance to the revolutionary Government of Russia.” From this
belief, or the affectation of it, sprang the clever notion of using
us in every possible way to advance their propaganda. Immense public
demonstrations, both indoor and outdoor, at which we were expected to
make speeches were already arranged for us when we arrived there.
We were never consulted about our desires in the matter. There were
enormous military parades and Trade Union marches, which we were made
to watch from a high platform, where we became the easy victims of the
Government Press photographer and the moving picture operator.
On several occasions members of the Delegation addressed the troops in
language eminently satisfying to the Bolshevik Commissars, and those
like myself, who declined to do this on the ground that we had not come
for such a purpose, became objects of suspicion and of quiet dislike.
Dinners and suppers followed each other in quick succession, at which
the soon-to-be-familiar revolutionary toasts were made the occasion
for more speeches. We were displayed in the box of the late Czar at
the Opera to interested spectators numbering several thousands on each
occasion both in Petrograd and Moscow. The way in which our clever
hosts contrived to place us under a very real and lasting obligation by
their generous regard for our physical welfare during the whole period
of our visit, and at the same time to extract from us for their own
purposes the last ounce of propaganda usefulness excited my warmest
admiration.
As propagandists there is surely no race and no class to surpass the
Russian Communists. At such work they are simply superb. I am quite
convinced from my own observation that they have won their victories
on the battlefield far more through their leaflets than their bullets.
The propaganda trains they are sending daily to the Polish front are
marvels of ingenuity. Inside and outside these trains are covered
with vivid pictures portraying side by side the horrors of Capitalism
and the glories of Communism in simple intelligible form, the horrid
capitalist murdering the poor peasant or standing triumphant over a
dying woman and child, whilst Communist fields bursting with grain
yield to the sickle of the happy, sun-browned, well-fed harvester.
Posters giving simple but effective figures, making glowing promises,
or issuing electric appeals to the proletariat to “rise and shake off
the hated chains of the bourgeoisie” decorate these railway carriages
through the whole of their length. Over the Polish lines burst shrapnel
cases filled with leaflets. Or they scatter Russian passports for all
the Poles who wish to desert and come over the lines.
The value of propaganda on a big scale for the prosecution of its aims
was discovered by the Government in Great Britain during the war. Large
sums of public money were spent upon it. Against this use of the taxes
British Socialists protested with warmth and unanimity as a violation
of personal rights. But not so would the Communists have acted. The
Government of Russia conducts such operations on an incredible scale.
Whole buildings of great size are stuffed from floor to ceiling with
pamphlets and leaflets printed in every well-used language in the
world, and a tireless and powerful propaganda in the principles of
Communism is carried on at the expense of the Russian State in every
country in the world to which Bolshevist agents have access. Here is
the last sentence in the section devoted to Education in the Communist
Manifesto of 1919:
“To develop the propaganda of Communist ideas on a wide scale, and for
that purpose, _of taking advantage of the State means and apparatus_.”
Our first public reception in Petrograd was at a dinner given to
us by the Petrograd Soviet. It was held in a great room which had
formerly been a stable but had been converted into the hall of a very
fine public assembly-room. All along the walls were banners specially
prepared for our coming, on some of which were sentences in English,
tendering us good advice on the lines of “Go thou and do likewise.”
Some of the thoughts so advertised were very fine, and one I cannot
refrain from mentioning, representing as it does all that is best
and finest in the Communist idea: “We are working for the children,
for the future, for humanity.” This is a much bigger conception than
the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” which is a very big and very
important section, but only a section of “humanity.”
As we entered the long passage which led to this dining-hall we heard
in the distance the strains of “The Internationalé.” Alas, I thought,
we are guilty of the rudeness of being late. Not at all! This was
simply the orchestra getting itself into form. As we entered, it burst
forth again with joyful hilarity. We stood by our seats till the end,
and then proceeded to talk to our neighbours. For the third time the
band broke into the strain. Some members of our party had strolled in
late. It was essential that they should have a royal reception also.
We settled down once more. Suddenly everybody started to his feet
again. It was “The Internationalé” for the fifth time, sung to welcome
the President of the Soviet to his chair. Then came the food, and, at
intervals, the speeches. After each speech came “The Internationalé,”
and whatever we were doing, eating or speaking, it had to cease until
the National Anthem of the world-proletariat, if I may so describe it,
had been sung. And a curiously amusing feature of this singing was,
that it indicated the degree of approval conferred upon the speech.
If the speech were a blood-red revolutionary speech in the recognised
style, the whole of the three verses was sung. If the speech were of
a quieter pattern, two verses followed. If, as happened in one case,
the speech kept close to the facts of the situation and lacked vim,
one verse only was its reward. All this may have happened without
design, but it happened so. And anyhow, we learnt the tune of “The
Internationalé” unforgettably that night, for it was sung whole or in
part, exactly seventeen times!
“Are you not afraid,” I asked, of a Communist who was near me, “that
the people will get tired of that song if you sing it so often? I can
imagine nothing more tiresome to the ears of our king than the public
prayer for his salvation put up for him every time he pays a public
call.”
“Why, yes,” he replied, “the people are a little tired of it; but it
is necessary to supersede the old National Anthem and such songs as
are associated with the old order, and instil into them revolutionary
melodies. It is good propaganda.”
Shades of the departed! Will the music of the country also be
sacrificed to the insatiable spirit of Karl Marx?
THE INTERNATIONALÉ
[Music:
1. Arise, ye starvelings, from your slumbers, Arise, ye criminals
of want, For reason in revolt now thunders, And at last ends the age
of cant. Now away with all superstitions, Servile masses, arise!
arise! We’ll change forthwith the old conditions, And spurn the dust
to win the prize.
CHORUS.
Then, comrades, come rally, the last fight let us face, The
Internationalé, Unites the human race, Then, comrades, come
rally, The last fight let us face, The Internationalé Unites the
human race.]
2. These kings defile us with their powder,
We want no war within the land;
Let soldiers strike: for peace call louder,
Lay down arms and join hand in hand.
Should these vile monsters still determine,
Heroes to make us in despite;
They’ll know full soon the kind of vermin
Our bullets hit in this last fight!
CHORUS: Then comrades, etc.