Off to Moscow
Off to Moscow at last, the city of our dreams! I have not told one
half of our adventures in Petrograd. It is not possible to do so. The
tour of the great Putiloff Works was of enormous interest, and may
be referred to in a later part of the narrative. Our visit to the
gloomy fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul at midnight had a mournful
fascination for those who have steeped themselves in the lore of the
martyrs of the Revolution. The old keeper of the cells is still there,
impassive and unresponsive as a man of such responsibilities might well
be, as quietly content to serve the new order as the old, human enough
to be pleased that no one occupied his quarters at the time of our
visit. We saw the large, damp, gloomy cells, twice as big as the cells
of an English prison, whose sole claim to comfort lay in the provision
in each cell of running water and a sanitary convenience. These things
were not, of course, in the punishment cells, which were entirely dark
and partly under water. The high-walled, narrow gully, where prisoners
were taken to be shot, from which no sound could penetrate to the
outer world, sent thrills of cold horror down our backs. The ingenious
methods of torture made us physically sick. Altogether it was a
gruesome experience, unrelieved of its sad associations by the humorous
writings on the wall of British prisoners temporarily incarcerated on
suspicion of promoting counter-revolutionary activity.
Off to Moscow! The city of golden domes and spires! So different from
Peter the Great’s city of the marshes, new and splendid though that is,
with the broad Neva to add to its beauty.
The same comfortable train took us there in thirteen hours. Usually it
takes longer; but orders had come through that we must be in Moscow
by noon the day following, and we were there to a minute. The crowds
which met us in the railway station and lined the approaches to the
station beggar description, both for their size and the warmth of
their reception. Here was an open-hearted, generous lot of people, to
whom we felt drawn from the very first minute. It did not take long
to sense a difference between these folk and those we had just left.
There was less of strain and torment here, more of human jolliness
and kindliness; less of the burning fever of revolution, more of its
constructive hope.
The representatives of the Soviets and the Trade Unions met us. The
bands played merrily, the flags and banners waved briskly and gleamed
brightly. The usual speeches of welcome were made and properly
acknowledged. And then we left in the fleet of motor-cars provided for
us to the large and commodious Hotel Delavoy Dvor, a whole floor of
which had been devoted to our use. Special passes were handed to us
at the station which admitted us to all the public buildings of the
Government, and we prepared ourselves for a useful and strenuous time.
The hotel in which we were lodged was a modern business men’s place
taken over by the Government with the rest of Moscow’s great public
buildings. It stands at the entry to a large square and is within a
good stone’s throw of the Kremlin. Our quarters were very comfortable,
almost luxurious, with substantial furnishings and good beds; but
alas for the scriptural injunction: “Thou shalt not be afraid for the
terror by night nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness!” A
new “Red Army” left its trail of blood along our pillows, one which,
after the first night, drove us from our beds to the refuge of the
more comfortable sofas. I give my word, there are more crawling things
in that Moscow hotel than I had imagined were contained in the whole
universe! Not in ones, nor twos, but in battalions, they came, making
the night hideous. Soon their slain bodies began to make effective
patterns upon the wall-paper; but they had the advantage of numbers and
we were compelled to yield to superior forces, and give up the attempt
to annihilate them.
Moscow is indeed the real Russian city, semi-oriental in type. The
number of its churches is amazing, and their vari-coloured domes and
cupolas glittered beautifully in the hot, bright sun. The streets
were in fairly good condition, and were much cleaner than we had been
led to expect, or than the streets of some other towns which were
visited. The people here looked under-nourished, as in Petrograd, but
there was more spring in their gait, less misery in their mien. Sober,
stolid, unemotional, indifferent, they spent little time in looking at
us beyond the tops of our boots, which in their shockingly bootless
condition were the things which interested them most. Sometimes
they frowned at our cars when these scattered dust all over them or
threatened to run them down.
The open markets of Moscow present a very interesting spectacle.
Private trading has not been abolished. It has only been driven into
the streets. Almost all the shops have been closed; all the big ones.
The lively appearance of the streets in most big cities is due to the
brightly dressed shop-windows, displaying tempting stores of goods of
all sorts. All this side of life has vanished. There are the Soviet
Stores, the Co-operative Stores and the displays of peasant arts and
crafts; but these present no attractive appearance and the goods
supplied tend towards standardisation, the thing which robs shopping of
half its joys. Besides these there are small shops selling those goods
which are not Government monopolies, such small wares as bootlaces,
pins; certain fruits and flowers; agricultural products such as eggs,
milk, potatoes, carrots, green vegetables and pork. Bread, both black
and white, is on sale, the black bread at 400 roubles and the white at
1000 roubles a pound.
I paid a visit to the Moscow markets on several occasions for the
purpose of discovering market prices, and actually bought eggs at 150
roubles each, flowers (peonies) at 400 roubles each blossom, sour milk
at 130 roubles a tumblerful (half a pint) and small cucumbers at 140
roubles each. In addition I discovered that the price of potatoes in
the open market was 130 roubles a pound and horseflesh from 460 to 600
roubles a pound. The average wage of an unskilled labourer in Moscow is
about 2000 roubles per month. The average wage of a good skilled worker
is not more than 4000 roubles a month. It is true that an addition is
made to the value of the wage by the gift of one good meal, and in
some special circumstances, of two meals a day. But it is also true
that the Government ration is only half what the people require for
health and that men and women must perforce buy in the open market or
go without necessary food. According to the prices and wages ruling in
Moscow at the present time, the money wage of a very well-paid skilled
worker, 4000 roubles a month, would buy ten pound loaves of black bread
or four pound loaves of white bread; about seven pounds of horseflesh,
twenty-seven fresh eggs or twenty-four pints of milk (at 180 roubles a
pint), and so on. Naturally, he must go without these things and do his
best to eke out a living on Government supplies.
There are rows of shaded booths in the marketplace, with regular
salesmen and women in attendance; but most of the trading is done by
individuals without stalls, refined and gentle folk, bourgeois many
of them, coming in the lowest categories for food, untrained in work
for the most part, and keeping soul and body together by selling
one by one articles of clothing or pieces of jewellery to whoever
will buy. Speculators haunt the place, and buy the most valuable
jewels and clothes for a mere song, re-selling to others, sometimes
peasants, in exchange for food, sometimes foreign profiteers out for
big fortunes. As private trading is against the law, in theory at
least, the Government sends periodically its emissaries to sweep down
upon the offenders, and a poor man or unhappy woman is sent to prison
for a term in order to deter the rest. Real criminals are sometimes
caught in this fashion, and when their premises are searched are
discovered to have hoards of valuable trinkets, costly clothing and
precious stones for sale at some future time and at fabulous prices
to the “new bourgeoisie,” or the rich peasantry, able to buy with
their agricultural produce, and frantic to possess the things they had
scarcely been allowed to look at before. But very often it is some poor
trembling soul who is famished and cold who is pounced upon, and unused
to the rough ways of the new world goes to her punishment in fear and
trembling, to come out of prison a nervous wreck and shadow of her
former self.
Many of these people we saw, and were filled with pity. Surreptitiously
one would produce a tiny jewelled watch, a magnificent diamond ring,
a costly fur, a beautifully ornamented comb, an exquisite enamel, or
a piece of rare china, looking fearfully at us lest after all we were
_agents provocateurs_ come to tempt before destroying. I have seen
nothing more pitiful in all my life than the struggle of these poor
souls to live.
There appear to be no automobiles in Moscow except those owned and
worked by the Government. Materials for repairs are greatly needed to
keep even these running smoothly. Many times the good cars devoted to
our service broke down. Once when we were thirty versts out of Moscow
at three o’clock in the morning, our car went wrong. Another came
running up alongside. Our driver ran to beg assistance. Instantly he
was covered with a revolver. He stood back sharply and the car drove
on; but not before we had caught a glimpse in the bright moonlight
of one of the occupants. It was Trotsky. Whether he thought we were
seeking his life, or whether he was in a vast hurry and did not wish
to be detained by a broken-down car we shall never know. But there was
more than a slight thrill in the adventure for the man who looked down
the muzzle of that revolver!
The trams were running in Moscow, and they were as crowded as the
London tube railway-carriages at the evening hour during the war. On
every inch where a foothold could be maintained, both inside and out,
people stood or clung. We were told that this happened on the railways
during the winter, with awful consequences to scores of people who
could not be restrained. Under the necessity of travelling, these poor
souls froze to death on the tops of carriages, clinging to footboards
or riding on buffers, their dead bodies being picked up by railway
workers on the line.
The droshky drivers, of whom few are left in Petrograd but many in
Moscow, are a picturesque race of old fellows, with their tall,
broad-brimmed hats, their thick, ample coats with leather or metal
belts, their high boots and profuse whiskers. For a thousand roubles
you might drive a mile or so in a very comfortable little carriage out
of which it would be almost impossible to fall.
There is perfect order in the city streets. By night or by day one can
walk with absolute safety. During the summer months it never really
grows dark. People take long leisure hours in the parks and open spaces
as in every other great city. Or they go to church. One or two open-air
cafés appear to be still in existence patronised in the main by the
old and new bourgeoisie, those of the former class who have not quite
spent their all, and those of the latter class who are spending in this
way for the first time. For one thousand roubles a plate of tolerable
ice-cream can be had, or coffee and cakes. There is little of gaiety,
none of the old café laughter and play. The general gloom pervades
everything.
I have been in both Vienna and Berlin since the overwhelming cataclysm
of the war. Berlin and Vienna are both unhappy cities, filled with
people who are hungry and despairing. Moscow was at least no worse
than these cities, either in appearance or in fact; and in some
respects proved to be better than either. It is crowded with people
and hotel accommodation is difficult to find. Enquirers from the four
corners of the globe are there. Peacemakers from the border states
are there. American, Swedish and other traders are there. Admirers of
Sovietism and worshippers of Lenin have come to bow the knee to the new
lord of the Kremlin.
Moscow is the Government’s headquarters. It is the home of the
Commissars. It is the seat of one of the most amazing experiments the
modern world has seen. It is a place of great interest for the whole
of the watching world. It is the pivot upon which earth-shaking events
will turn. And it deserves to be treated with respect, and not with the
ignorant contempt which stupid people shower upon it.
Mistakes have been made there, cruel things are being done there; but
the mistakes are not bigger nor the cruel things more cruel than have
recently been made and done in other capital cities by men who, for
character and integrity, ability and personality are not fit to tie the
shoe-strings of the best of the men and women of Moscow.