MIRRORS OF MOSCOW
BY
LOUISE BRYANT
_With five illustrations by_
CÉSARE
[Illustration: Logo]
NEW YORK
THOMAS SELTZER
1923
Copyright, 1923, by
THOMAS SELTZER, INC.
_All rights reserved_
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO THREE WISE EDITORS--
M. KOENIGSBERG
BRADFORD MERRILL
PHILLIP FRANCIS
CONTENTS
PAGE
FOREWORD xi
LENIN AND HIS SUBORDINATES 1
JACOB PETERS, FEDORE S. DZERZHINSKY AND
THE EXTRAORDINARY COMMISSION 43
ANATOL VASSILIEVITCH LUNACHARSKY AND
RUSSIAN CULTURE 69
MICHAEL IVANOVITCH KALININ AND THE
PEASANTS 85
MADAME ALEXANDRA KOLLONTAI AND THE
WOMAN’S MOVEMENT 109
LEON TROTSKY, SOVIET WAR LORD 129
ENVER PASHA AND THE MOHAMMEDANS 147
TIKON AND THE RUSSIAN CHURCH 165
TCHICHERIN, COMMISSAR FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS,
AND HIS SUBORDINATES 179
MAXIM LITVINOV, ASSISTANT COMMISSAR,
LEONID KRASSIN AND SUBORDINATES 197
ILLUSTRATIONS
_Facing Page_
LENIN 2
KALININ 86
KOLLONTAI 110
TROTSKY 130
ENVER PASHA 148
FOREWORD
Revolution! The air is filled with flames and fumes. The shapes of
men, seen through the smoke, become distorted and unreal. Promethean
supermen, they seem, giants in sin or virtue, Satans or saviours. But,
in truth, behind the screen of smoke and flame they are like other men:
no larger and no smaller, no better and no worse: all creatures of the
same incessant passions, hungers, vanities and fears.
So it is in Russia. And in this book I have tried to show the leaders
of the revolution as they really are, as I know them in their homes,
where the red glare does not penetrate and they live as other men.
Great events make great men. For to be strong enough even to maintain
one’s self amid great events is to be great. Without the event the
strength is nothing. Had the revolt of 1917 failed, like the revolt
of 1905, Lenin would have worked his life out in an attic in Geneva,
Trotsky would have lived and died in a New York garret, Kalinin would
have remained a disappointed, debt-burdened peasant, Tchicherin a
futile ex-diplomatist in exile. The world would not have known their
names: just as the world would not have known Napoleon or Danton or
Marat or Robespierre had Louis XVI been a trifle less desperately dull.
But the revolt of 1917 became a revolution and its colossal drive and
heave flung up the exiles to greatness. As men it did not change them.
They differ from the political leaders one meets in Washington,
London and Paris, largely because they are able to be franker and
more themselves. Public opinion, which is the boon of politicians
and the bane of statesmen, does not drive them to drab conformity or
high-sounding platitude. The public they have to satisfy is small
and sophisticated--the trade unions of the larger cities. And these
workingmen demand, above all else, frankness and the unpowdered truth.
An address by Lenin is, therefore, as direct, unsentimental and full
of facts as a statement to a board of directors by an executive of
an American corporation. The slow, strong wants of the peasants have
to be heeded, too; but they are simple wants, land and free trade,
and do not yet touch intricate things, remote from the daily life of
the farm, like foreign affairs and higher economics. In the end the
peasants will rule Russia, but to-day public opinion is the opinion of
the class-conscious workingmen of the cities. Therefore, the leaders of
Russia can afford to be frank.
In the western democracies, politics is the art of seeming frank
while not being so. Only three types of politicians ever emerge in
the highest places. First, the statesman of brilliant intellectual
understanding, like Lloyd George, who always knows what he ought to do,
and never does it--until the public also comes to understand, usually
some months, or years, later. Second, the sentimentalist, who is always
able to muddle an inconvenient understanding of facts and muffle his
conscience with high-sounding principles that endear him to the public
heart. Third, the kindly blockhead, who discovers what ought to be
done just a little later than the public. These types do not exist in
Russia. The trade unions compel the Russian politician to be a stark
realist, talking frankly, acting on the best information he can obtain
and giving that information fully to his public. The leaders pictured
in this book will seem, therefore, franker and more direct than the
leaders of the western world.
They will also seem more desperate; not because it is their natural
character to be desperate but because they face as desperate a problem
as ever strained the human brain. They have been caught, from the
first, on the horns of the revolutionary dilemma. The same intolerable
breakdown of economic life, which alone makes revolution possible, also
predestines revolution to almost certain failure. That dull beast, the
public, will move to revolution only when life has become unbearable,
only when the established order has broken down so completely that
ruins alone remain. Revolution does not come before ruin. And to build
on ruins a new and fairer life is a task almost beyond the powers of
men. So much of the exhausted energy of the nation must be consumed in
re-establishing the mere fundamentals of life--food, shelter, clothing
and security from fear--that little remains to attack the task of
remoulding life in a shape that is closer to the heart’s desire. But
to this task the leaders of Russia have dedicated their lives. And if
they succeed or if they fail, they will be remembered always for their
courage in following an ideal through destruction, famine, death and
the hatred of the world.
Here, then, they are: the Russians of to-day: close to the Tartar
and the Cossack of the plain, children of serfs and Norsemen and
Mongols--close to the earth and striving for the stars.
LOUISE BRYANT.
LENIN AND HIS SUBORDINATES
NIKOLAI LENIN
CHRISTIAN RAKOVSKY
ABRAHAM KRASNICHAKOV
LEO KAMINEV AND GREGORY ZINOVIEV
PETER STOOTCHKA
ALIEXIEV IVANOVITCH RYKOV
[Illustration: LENIN]
LENIN AND HIS SUBORDINATES
NIKOLAI LENIN
Lenin became an active revolutionist through the spiritual motives that
have moved all great reformers--not because he himself was hungry and
an outcast, but because he could not stand by unmoved in a world where
other men were hungry and outcast. Such characters are predestined
internationalists; the very quality that lifts them above materialism
places them above borders and points of geography; they strive for the
universal good. Lenin believes that the only thing worth living for
is the next generation. Communism is his formula for saving the next
generation from the injustices and inequalities of the present.
When I think of Lenin and his place in the Russian revolution I am
reminded of a statue which, until the late Fall of the year 1918,
adorned the busy square before the entrance to the Nikoliavski station
in Petrograd. It represented one of the former rulers of Russia astride
a huge stallion. One could not fail to be struck by the tremendous
strength of the animal and the frailty of the rider. The contrast was
intentional; the titled sculptor meant to warn his sovereign of the
dangers threatening the throne. Russia was the wild horse, fierce,
untamed, powerful, a force as yet unaroused but which might wake up any
moment and cast off its royal burden.
When Lenin took the reins of state, he was in exactly the same position
as a man riding a runaway horse. The utmost his constituents could have
expected was that he would guide Russia away from complete destruction.
They could hold him responsible for immediate situations but not for
ultimate results. To what goal those vast urges and desires which
caused the revolution would carry Russia, was beyond him or any man to
command. His heart and his mind wished to direct it toward the crimson
portals of socialism. Russia, however, in its stampede seems to have
slowed up dangerously near the old, familiar gates of capitalism.
Nevertheless, she will never be the same; Lenin is responsible for it
that Russia has forever gained the larger fruits of the revolution.
Legends spring up around every famous man, manufactured largely by
his enemies, who spread tales of his lavish extravagance, his vices,
his affairs with women. It is important to know such facts about a
man’s life. His personal relationships mean a great deal; if he fails
in these, he eventually fails in all ways. The life of the leader of
a great world movement must harmonize with his doctrines; his conduct
must be as austere or as lax as his doctrines dictate. That is why
we have a natural antipathy to dissolute priests and none at all to
dissolute poets and Bacchanalians. So it is worthy of note that even
the narrowest moralist could not pick a flaw in Lenin’s personal
conduct I am convinced that if he had lived in any other way than he
has, he could not have maintained his remarkable poise.
Whatever inward storms arose he was impressive because of his outward
serenity, because of his calm, majestic as a Chinese Buddha’s. Without
any fuss he took power, faced world opposition, civil war, disease,
defeat and even success. Without fuss he retired for a space, and
without fuss he has returned again. His quiet authoritativeness
inspired more confidence than could any amount of pomp. I know of no
character in history capable, as he was through such distressing days,
of such complete, aristocratic composure.
Every normal man is pushed forward or back to some degree by women.
It is my theory that Lenin’s amazing stability was substantially
strengthened by the women who meant most to him. Those women were:
his mother, his wife, his sister and his lifelong friend and, in late
years, chief secretary, Fotiva.
During all the years since the Bolshevik uprising, Fotiva has been his
assistant. On days when he was ill or away in the country she actually
had charge of the office. She is a highly efficient woman of forty,
tall, dark, healthy and full of enthusiasm. She is quiet, also, and
cheerful, and creates a pleasant atmosphere about her.
Lenin’s office, with Fotiva managing all the under-secretaries, is an
agreeable office to enter. You never feel like an intruder, nor, at
the same time, that it is a place to loaf in, which means that she
knows how to preserve a happy balance. In all one’s dealings with
Fotiva, one finds her a woman of her word. She has the very un-Russian
quality of always being on time for appointments and never going back
on her promises. She is a Communist of old standing and occasionally
contributes articles to newspapers and magazines.
As for Madame Lenin, no one could be disturbed in her presence. How
different the state of the Soviet Premier’s temper might have been on
occasions were his wife the sort of woman who would weep because her
apartment in the Kremlin was small, or would quarrel with the other
Commissars’ wives, or would be jealous of Fotiva. The truth is, she
admires Fotiva and is entirely glad of her existence.
Madame Lenin, whose real name is Nadezhda Konstantinova Krupskaya
Ulianova, acted for many years as Lenin’s secretary. Only ill health
prevented her from continuing the work.
When Lenin was editor of Iskra in Switzerland, she was the secretary of
the whole Iskra organization, which not only had charge of publishing a
newspaper but carried on vast party activities. All the correspondence
was in her hands. At one time she was in communication with every
revolutionist in Russia.
That is one reason why she is so well known from one end of the
country to the other and why people still continue to call her by her
revolutionary name.
Under the Tsar, Lenin was twice exiled and Krupskaya always shared
his fate. Together they passed hard years in Switzerland, England and
especially Paris, where for two years Lenin spent almost his entire
time studying in the national library. His only means of existence was
by his writings, and he wrote solely for and about the revolution--by
no means a remunerative occupation. The entire period of exile extended
over ten long years. In that time the Lenins never knew a day of
ease or luxury. They had become accustomed to privations long before
the revolution, had lived in the meanest quarters of every city they
visited, occupying, as a rule, only one room, where they ate, slept,
studied and carried on their revolutionary work.
It does not seem mere romance to infer that Krupskaya has had a good
deal to do with keeping Lenin’s nerves steady.
There were moments when Trotsky lost his head, when the Extraordinary
Commission gave way to doubts, when Tchicherin hesitated--but never
Lenin. Without doubt the secret of his power is that he is the only man
in Russia, of any political group, whose purpose always remained clear
and whose hand never trembled.
He made all manner of blunders. That he was able to admit his mistakes
emphasizes his quality of mind. It is a scientific mind: a mind so
well disciplined that he is able to face every fact, failure as well
as success. Moreover, he has a way of grasping a situation almost by
instinct; at least he grasps it at a stroke.
Nikolai Lenin strives for two great things--to westernize Russia and to
keep alive the fountainhead of the Socialist State.
He told me that he did not want to grant a single foreign concession,
whether a factory, a mine or a forest concession, unless he could
establish a similar Russian institution alongside of it so that the
Russians might continually see before their eyes the superiority of the
American or the English way of doing things.
He is more interested in America than in any other country.
I remember one afternoon just before I went up to interview him, an
official in the Foreign Office told me that if America did not hurry
and start trade negotiations with Russia, Russia would be forced to
make a trade alliance with Japan. I mentioned this to Lenin and he said:
“Nonsense! Even if we could trust Japan, which we cannot, what could
she give us? We need thousands of tractors, railway engines, cars,
things like that. We must get such things from America, we must make
friends with America.”
I think he feels in closer contact with the United States, too,
because of the number of former exiles who once fled to our shores and
who returned after the revolution and now hold office under the Soviet
Government. He likes the way they have been trained here.
It has given him the idea of working concessions in the manner I have
described. He also feels gratitude toward Raymond Robins and always
asks about him, considers William C. Bullitt a man of honor, while John
Reed was as near to his heart as was ever any Russian.
He is continually reading American papers, books and magazines. When
I came home I sent him the “Mirrors of Washington,” and I know how he
will chuckle over it as he used to chuckle over William Hard’s articles
in the _New Republic_.
He admires American energy so much that he comes very near
understanding an American reporter’s need for on-the-minute news, which
no other Soviet official appreciates, except Trotsky.
I will never forget the day during the blackest time of the blockade
when I went to Lenin and asked permission to go to the Middle East
after the Foreign Office had flatly refused me this permission. He
simply looked up from his work and smiled.
“I am glad to see there is someone in Russia,” he said, “with enough
energy to go exploring. You might get killed down there, but you will
have the most remarkable experience of your life; it is worth taking
chances for.”
In two days I was on my way, with every necessary _probsk_ to ride on
any train or stop in any government hotel. I carried a personal letter
from Lenin and had two soldiers for escort! Any other official in
Russia would have considered me an infernal nuisance even to suggest
such an adventure in the middle of a revolution.
Lenin has always stood for allowing political enemies to leave Russia.
This shows an unexpected softness in his make-up which only those who
know him well comprehend.
Naturally, the Cheka disagrees with him on this point, holding that
when these people “succeed in getting out of Russia” they are just as
much a part of the war on Russia as the White Army is.
The explanation is that Lenin has by no means a forbidding personality:
revenge never occupies his mind. He will flay an opponent in a debate
and walk out of the hall arm-in-arm with him. He is extraordinarily
human and good-natured and wishes to see everyone happy.
In the beginning of the revolution he imagined that he could maintain a
free press, free speech and be liberal toward his enemies. But he found
himself faced by a situation where iron discipline was the only method
capable of saving the day.
There were times when he rather ruthlessly suppressed the Anarchists,
but only because they threatened violence at every step. The supreme
test of his power to forgive came during the Social Revolutionary
trial, which took place in the summer of this year. He was lying ill in
the country from the effects of an operation to remove an assassin’s
bullet from his neck. The people responsible for the bullet were duly
sentenced to death after a long and illuminating trial, in which the
absolute evidence of their guilt was established. It was through the
irrepressible influence of Lenin that their sentences were all commuted.
Lenin never scorns a deep affection or a personal sentiment. At the
time of Kropotkin’s death, the widow and daughter sent a telegram to
Lenin asking that the Anarchist leaders then imprisoned in Moscow be
allowed to attend the funeral. Lenin let them go “on their honor”
without guards for three days.
The Cheka objected, the Foreign Office objected and the Moscow Soviet
objected, but Lenin’s will, as usual, prevailed. This generosity
toward his enemies costs Lenin nothing and helps him to maintain his
astonishing equilibrium.
Every man in Lenin’s cabinet, with the exception of Trotsky and
Tchicherin, has been working with him for over twenty years; they
really are his disciples. He knows their characteristics as well as if
they were his own children. He knows just how much brains and ability
each one has.
Once he was asked why he keeps a certain man, who is so obviously
inferior to the others. He smiled and said, “Isn’t it always necessary
to have at least one fool in every cabinet?”
Lenin makes an interesting contrast to Woodrow Wilson. Lenin picks
the strongest minds he can get and complains that he cannot find
enough brains. He feels a particular lack of brains in the diplomatic
service. The small corps around Tchicherin will be highly inadequate to
spread over the earth when the time comes for sending ambassadors and
consuls to every country in the world. Russia will be as slip-shoddily
represented as America. It is only the English who realize the value
of a school for diplomats.
Lenin has never been known to dismiss a man after he has worked with
him only half a year. And no man has ever deserted him no matter how
Lenin may have ridden down his opposition.
Politically, Lenin has a hard, cold, calculating brain and uses all men
to his own ends. They forgive him because he does it openly and for no
personal gain.
The Soviet Premier is by no means a vain man. He rarely autographs
pictures of himself, and the diary the American editors always request
us to ask him about will never be written. He says he is too tired to
write down notes after the day’s mass of work has been done. Lack of
vanity and conceit is an equal reason.
He hates to be flattered or to have his portrait painted. He was in
real distress because he consented to allow Claire Sheridan to do his
bust. Angelica Balabonova was spending an evening with the Lenins in
their apartment that same week and she said, reprovingly:
“Revolutionaries have something else to do beside spend their time in
such a way.”
Lenin answered:
“I agree with you and I felt unhappy about it, but when Comrade
Litvinov asked me to sit, it seemed such a small matter that I didn’t
like to be disagreeable.”
As a matter of fact, he only gave Mrs. Sheridan a few hours and, from
her own account, worked all the time he was posing.
In private conversation, no subject is too small for his attention. I
remember one time some foreign delegates were talking about the Russian
theatre and particularly about the lack of costumes and stage property.
Someone said that Gellser, the great ballerina, complained that she had
no silk stockings. The delegates were of the opinion that this was a
slight matter. Not so Lenin.
He frowned and said he would see to it that Gellser had everything she
needed immediately. Calling his stenographer, he dictated a letter to
Lunacharsky about it. Yet Lenin had never seen Gellser dance and took
no further interest in the affair.
On the one occasion, in three years, that he found time to attend the
theatre, he chose Shakespeare. Telephoning to Lunacharsky he announced,
“I want to see the best performance at the Art Theatre.”
Lunacharsky was in doubt but mentioned Helena Soochacheva’s superb
performance in “Twelfth Night.” Lenin interrupted, “I’ll see that.” And
once in the theatre he forgot his million worries and enjoyed himself
with the abandon of a child. Hunting and horseback riding he goes in
for with the same enthusiasm.
I have often been asked just what was back of Lenin and his colleagues;
what moved them to attempt to establish Socialism at such a moment and
against such odds.
Most of us agree that it was partly a revolt against an age of
commercialism. But fundamentally it was a demonstration.
Radek told Arthur Ransome that the Bolshevik leaders did not expect to
hold power two months when they seized the reins of government.
Half a year after Lenin became Premier, he wrote:
“If they crush us now, they can never efface the fact that we have
been. The idea will go on.”
It is ridiculous to contend that Lenin has “repented” because he has
found it necessary to go back to a modified capitalism. One need not
repent because one has failed. If Lenin is forced to abandon every
vestige of Communism, it will not mean that he no longer believes in
Marx.
It will more likely mean that, finding circumstances too much for him,
he is retreating to a position as strategic as he can find. That he
remains master of the retreat indicates that he will move backward only
as far as he is pushed.
It is hard now to realize on what a fine thread many important
situations during the last years have hung, situations that would have
completely changed future history. It is hard to realize, for example,
that the Germans almost reached Paris or that the White forces almost
took Petrograd.
Perhaps Lenin was the only man in Russia who fully realized how near
the Soviets came to being overthrown. There was one moment when the
morale of the Red Army was exceedingly low and when even the trusted
Lettish sharpshooters guarding the Kremlin grew discouraged and sampled
the wine in the Kremlin cellars to make life more interesting. A Lett
who went through these days told me an amazing story.
“One night the Old Man himself came down to the barracks, called the
officers out, felt in our pockets and, finding one or two flasks of
vodka, smashed them on the cobblestones and went away without saying a
word. He only had to come once; we were deeply ashamed.”
How much truth there is in this story I do not know, but it sounds so
exactly like Lenin that I am inclined to give it full credence.
From this low ebb he built his power solidly, never forgetting to
reckon on the peasants. Now face to face at last with Mr. Lloyd George,
Lenin is backed by a strong Red Army and a loyal staff.
From the moment he took office Lenin never had a serious political
rival. And the blockade bestowed on him a peculiar legendary
significance which will remain with him as long as he does not leave
Russia.
Nikolai Lenin has been a conscious revolutionist since he was sixteen,
but he has never been a “terrorist.” A terrorist, in revolutionary
vernacular, is one who believes in individual acts of violence.
His mind is too ordered and his plans too wide for such incoherent
emotionalism.
His father was a small landed (hereditary) noble, holding the office
of State Councillor, having an estate in Simbirsk. Vladimir Illyitch
Ulianov, which is Lenin’s real name, was born there on April 10, 1870.
There were in all five children, three boys and two girls.
It was a closely-knit family. One of Lenin’s best friends and
advisers even now is his sister Anna. She spends most of her time in
Moscow. He has a brother living in the provinces, who comes to see
him occasionally, a quiet, studious man, not interested in politics,
and, perhaps, even a little repelled by the strenuousness of them,
especially in Russia.
There is no doubt that Lenin’s determination to fight the Tsar’s
government crystallized at the time of his brother’s death. His eldest
brother, Alexander, was away at the University of Petrograd. All that
they heard from him at home was about the winning of gold medals and
honors of all sorts until one day came the terrible news that he had
been arrested for a plot against the Czar.
Lenin’s mother, Maria Alexandrovna, rushed away to Petrograd. When she
reached her son’s side he burst into tears and immediately confessed
everything to her. He begged her to forgive him for bringing sorrow to
his beloved family. At the trial he made no defense and asked no mercy.
He was executed in the courtyard of Schlüsselberg fortress on May 20,
1886.
And back home in the little preparatory school called the “gymnasium”
were two youths profoundly touched by this tragedy. One was the present
Premier and the other was Alexander Kerensky, whose father was master
of the school; evolution works in strange ways.
The Lenins have no children. They have devoted their lives to the
revolution. Madame Lenin is a pale, scholarly woman, usually in very
poor health. It was she who devised the new scheme for adult education
in Russia which Lunacharsky told me has proved highly efficient.
Lenin adores his wife and speaks of her with enthusiasm. The first time
I told him that I wanted to meet her, he said:
“Yes, you must do that because you will like her, she is so
intelligent.”
I found her both intelligent and sympathetic.
She invited me to take tea with her in her apartment and I was very
glad to go, since I wanted to see for myself how the Lenins lived.
They have two small rooms, which is the regulation in overcrowded
Moscow. Everything was spotlessly clean, though, as she explained, she
had no servant. There were quantities of books, plants in the windows,
a few chairs, a table, beds and no pictures on the walls.
I found her to have the same charm which Lenin has and the same way of
focusing all her attention on what her visitor is saying.
When you go to Lenin’s office he always jumps up and comes forward
smiling, shakes hands warmly and pushes forward a comfortable chair.
When you are seated he draws up another chair, leans forward and begins
to talk as if there was nothing else to do in the world but visit.
He likes harmless gossip and will laugh mightily over some story about
how Mr. Vanderlip fought with a Hungarian over a few sticks of wood on
a cold day, or an incident which occurred on a train, or in the street.
He himself loves to tell stories, and tells them very well. But no
conversation runs on lightly for long with Lenin. He will stop suddenly
in his laughter and say:
“What sort of a man is Mr. Harding, and what is his background?”
It does not matter how determined one is to ply him with questions, one
always goes away astonished because one has talked so much and answered
so many questions instead of asking them. He has an extraordinary way
of drawing one out and of putting one in an expansive mood.
This capacity for personal contact must be a big influence with the men
with whom he comes constantly in touch.
No wonder he dominates his Cabinet! When he narrows his small Tartar
eyes, looks at one with such understanding and intimacy, one feels he
is the best friend in the world; it would be impossible to oppose him.
We are wont to think of Lenin as a destroyer, but he is more of a
builder.
When he could not build a Communist State he did not throw up his
hands. He built the best State he could in its place and now he is
saying that Russia is the safest country in Europe; that it has reached
its lowest level and is climbing up, while other countries in Europe
are still declining.
It is just possible that he is right!
CHRISTIAN RAKOVSKY
The world, which now very generally concedes to Lenin great political
adroitness, is not fully aware of the extent of his talent. What other
man could have managed, under the stress of the hour, to have kept
control of the politics of great Russia, the Ukraine, the Far Eastern
Republic and even of China? And not only does he guide the destinies of
these Republics, he subordinates the men at the head of them. Thus he
is consolidating Russia. In Moscow, people believe that Lenin will some
day bring the Baltic States back into the Soviet federation.
Christian Rakovsky, President of the Ukraine, never reaches any
important decision without consulting Lenin. Rakovsky is an interesting
personality and a man whose star is ascending. He is undoubtedly one of
the strongest men in Russia, and since Lenin backs him, he ought to go
far.
Rakovsky was born in the little Bulgarian town of Kotel. His family is
one of the best known in all the Balkans. The name Rakovsky is woven
through Balkan history and revolutionary struggles.
Expelled from college for revolutionary activities, young Rakovsky
went to Geneva in 1890 and joined the Russian Social Democratic
Party. In 1892 he was arrested in Geneva for an encounter with an
agent-provocateur; he was expelled from Berlin the same year for
participation in the German labor movement.
After some difficulty he was permitted to remain in France, where he
carried on his studies. He was graduated from a French medical college
in 1897 and returned to Bulgaria.
Two years later he published a large historical volume called “Russian
Policy in the East.” He also wrote what was considered a brilliant
dissertation on criminology and degeneracy.
Rakovsky went to Russia in 1900, but was immediately arrested and
expelled by the Tsar’s police. He returned to Germany and there he
wrote his best known book, “Present Day France,” which was published
under the pen-name of Insarov.
A short time after completing this book he entered the judicial faculty
of the University of Paris, but was so interested in the Russian
revolution that he gave up his post after a year and went again to
Russia, only to be expelled promptly.
He organized the Socialist Party in Roumania in 1904 and in 1907 was
arrested following some peasant uprising. He was deprived of all
political rights, exiled and forbidden ever to return to Roumania. But
he had such a large and staunch following and so many serious riots
took place that the Government was too embarrassed to carry out its
decision. In a riot in Bucharest more than fifty persons were killed.
In 1912 he was re-enfranchised, which was considered a great victory
for the Roumanian labor leader.
Rakovsky is an habitual publicist; in the course of his career he has
founded ten newspapers.
During the war he was so active in his anti-war propaganda that he was
imprisoned in Roumania, but the first days of the 1917 revolution gave
him back his freedom when the Russian garrison in Jassy decided of its
own initiative to release all political prisoners.
He was not popular with the Provisional Government and, fearing his
influence, Burstev requested his arrest in a note to Tereschenko and in
a telegram to Kerensky. Learning of this order, he went to Sweden and
was in Stockholm at the time of the Bolshevik _coup d’état_.
In 1919 he was elected head of the Ukraine by the action of the Third
Congress of Ukrainian Soviets. I say “head” because he is at present
Premier, President and Minister of Foreign Affairs as well as a member
of the Executive Committee of the Third International in Moscow.
While I was in Moscow Rakovsky and his wife spent several weeks in
the house in which I lived. Madame Rakovsky is the sort of woman who
adds interesting and insuppressible variety to the leveling influence
of the revolution. She is a princess, speaks French in preference to
Russian after the manner of the old Russian aristocracy, and still
uses a lorgnette. She is an enthusiastic Communist. Everything about
her is charming, distinguished and--eminently exclusive! She always
accompanies her husband wherever he goes, is present at all interviews,
and one can tell by the way he listens to her opinions that he places
particular value on her advice.
Rakovsky himself is in manner and appearance more like an Old World
diplomat than a revolutionist. But in spite of his suavity he has
Lenin’s ability to face situations squarely. He once gave me such a
frank statement about conditions in the Ukraine that instead of going
over the cables to my paper it was officially chucked into the waste
basket by Tchicherin.
ABRAHAM KRASNICHAKOV
Out in Chicago Abraham Moiseyevitch Krasnichakov was plain Mr.
Tobinson, but for three years he has enjoyed great authority under his
own name as head of the Far Eastern Republic.
There is nothing lacking in either romance or adventure in the story
of A. Stroller Tobinson. He was born in the city of Chernobyl, in
the province of Kiev, in Russia, and fled to the United States about
the time his brother was executed in Odessa for some connection with
revolutionary activities. This was in 1904.
Tobinson was a Russian law student of unusual ability, but when he
arrived in America a poor immigrant he found his Russian education of
little use; he first had to learn the English language.
In Chicago he went to work as a house painter and attended night
school. In 1912 he was admitted to the bar, but never was a great
success as a lawyer. And while he took only a passive interest in the
radical movement, yet he continually gave his services in all sorts of
labor cases.
Not until he, somehow, became interested in organizing a preparatory
school for workers who wanted to go to college did he seem to hit his
medium. From that time on he rapidly developed into an organizer and
leader, and soon assumed charge of all the educational work connected
with the Workers’ Institute.
He started with a broad program which shut out all petty, political and
group influences. He was a born teacher, and nothing is more rare than
a good teacher.
His intense interest in the education of the masses was really what
carried him back to Siberia in 1917. And there one of those curious
historical situations arose which suddenly thrust him unexpectedly and
unprepared into power.
He was one of the numerous candidates for President up before the
Constitutional Assembly of the Far Eastern Republic. He certainly never
expected to be elected. It was the stupidity of his political rivals
which gave him this position.
A day or two before the election some one wrote a vicious attack upon
him in one of the papers, asking the people of Siberia if they wanted a
“porter,” a common house painter, to guide the affairs of the republic.
When Tobinson read this he was furious to think that his hard struggles
in America as an emigrant were thrown at him as if they were a
disgrace. He sat down and wrote a letter explaining that he had had a
good education, both in Russia and America, that he was not actually a
workman, but a lawyer. When he had finished writing this explanation,
he put it in his pocket and started toward the office of the same
paper. On the street he was met by a delegation of workingmen, who
threw their arms around him and called him “Comrade.”
One of them said: “We were against you until we read what the bourgeois
are saying, but now we are all on your side; we want a man who is one
of us.” This was the beginning of Tobinson’s popularity and this is the
story of how he became President of the Far Eastern Republic.
Tobinson was not a Communist. His connections had been more with groups
who simply revolted against the medieval tyranny which had existed in
Russia. But he admired Lenin above all the revolutionists, and was of
the opinion that Lenin was the only revolutionary leader who could
hold Russia together. Therefore he secretly allied himself with the
Communist government at Moscow.
He had two strong convictions. One was that Siberia wasn’t ready
for Communism, and that even if it was it would be destroyed by the
Japanese or by the Allies. Therefore, the only thing to do was to keep
it a buffer state between Japan and the Soviets. To do this and placate
all sides took infinite tact.
Tobinson proved equal to the task. His record in the last three years
is a record of extraordinary achievement. He has established schools
with the most modern methods; and against the most terrific odds he
has slowly but surely made the life of the Far Eastern Republic one of
steady, national reconstruction. I don’t think he believed for a minute
that it should be permanently separated from Russia.
LEO KAMINEV AND GREGORY ZINOVIEV
Toward the end of the first week of the Bolshevik uprising, Zinoviev
and Kaminev lost heart. With Mylutin, Nogin and Rykov, they handed in
resignations to the Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party.
Lenin read the letters at a great meeting in Smolny and cried: “Shame
upon these men of little faith, who hesitate and doubt!”
Lenin has long since conquered their opposition, but he has not changed
their souls. Kaminev and Zinoviev are in his cabinet, as satellites,
however, not as leaders; they are the weakest members.
Kaminev is President of the Moscow Soviet and a member of the
All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Soviets. He is on the
national famine committee and probably makes a very good impression on
the American Relief people with whom he comes in contact. They ought to
feel quite at home with him; he has the genial manners of an American
small-town politician.
He has certainly retained a middle class consciousness in spite of
five years of actual revolutionary experience, in spite of what is
known in Russia as a steady revolutionary past. I don’t think his
idea of Communist discipline can be very well defined. He likes to be
magnanimous and promises everything to everybody. He is generous, and
since it is hard to be generous in a Socialist State where one owns
nothing to be generous with, his only recourse is to be generous with
the property of the State.
In a glow of hospitality he once gave a sable coat worth thousands of
dollars to a lady he admired and was genuinely astonished and grieved,
I think, by the bitter criticisms then hurled at him. Had there been
enough “trusted and trained” men to go round (which there never are in
any government), this particular attack of giving might have cost him
his career, though in any other society his actions would have been
quite normal.
Kaminev is an excellent subordinate and capable of making a fortune in
a capitalist society. He cannot be accused of having no ideals; he can
be accused only of having the average politician’s moral stamina.
Bela Kun is the only other Soviet official who parallels Kaminev’s
distrust of the press. I once went to Bela Kun’s office to get a
statement. After ten promises and ten delays, I was in a small rage
myself and asked him why he had not said in the first instance that he
had no intention of giving a statement. He looked up from his desk,
ran his chubby fingers through his hair, and said in a bewildered way,
“Well, you see, I have just taken aspirin.” A young Russian officer
sitting nearby smiled at me and said dryly, in English, “No wonder the
Hungarian Soviets fell!”
Kaminev will probably remain in office many years for no better or
no worse reason than the reason for which many of our Senators are
returned to Washington term after term.
Zinoviev’s position is much more important and much harder to define.
Aside from being in the Cabinet, he is President of the Petrograd
Commune and President of the Third International. He really has great
power and he is known to be wilful and arbitrary. His party opponents
claim that his capriciousness has split the German Communist party into
six factions and confused and alienated most of the parties in the
other countries.
A Russian professor, who was interested in political movements merely
as an observer, explained Zinoviev’s curious tenacity in office in
this way: “The Communists,” he said, “insist so strongly upon party
discipline and party loyalty that they have never been able to face the
fact that Zinoviev is not a leader.”
Zinoviev’s appearance is against him. He is short, heavily built,
flabby. Yet he is not devoid of vanity; he is the most photographed man
in Russia. And while he has little imagination, he has real dramatic
sense, he has a way of staging everything.
At Baku, at one moment he had the Easterners unsheathing their
swords and declaring a holy war; at another moment he had a group of
Mohammedan women in the gallery tearing off their veils. All this was
distinctly impressive and dramatic, but the real drawback was that the
effect of the second act almost ruined the effect of the first.
I often wonder if a man can be a great leader, and be utterly devoid of
humor. When Zinoviev says anything clever he is not even aware of it
and invariably spoils it by a second act.
During the Kronstadt uprising the Esthonian government, with its wish
father to its thought, sent a wire to Petrograd which read: “What sort
of government have you in Petrograd?” And Zinoviev replied: “The same
government that has been here since 1917.”
If he could only have stopped at that one sentence he might have been
able to lead a world revolution, or at least catch the imagination
of the workers. Instead he insisted upon being didactic. He wired
page after page, delivering an orthodox Marxian lecture! But the
International is not without men of talent and daring. There are men
under Zinoviev--Italians, Frenchmen, Germans, Bulgarians, Americans,
with real fire and ability.
Bucharin, editor of _Pravda_, is by far the most brilliant of the
Russians. No matter how much one may disagree with Bucharin, one must
concede his brilliancy. The Letts have an exceptionally able group in
the International. Some of these men were actually in power during the
brief time that Latvia was “red.” The leader of the group is a stately
old man called Stootchka. For four months he was President of Latvia.
PETER STOOTCHKA
Peter Stootchka is one of those advisers and assistants of Lenin that
the world has not yet discovered. He is a man of capacious mind and one
of Lenin’s closest friends. He is a lawyer by profession and for many
years was the editor of a Lettish progressive paper in Riga. He was
exiled to Siberia for some criticism of the Tsar’s government.
He was the first Commissioner of Justice under the Soviets and only
resigned his post to accept one as President of Latvia. When Riga fell
he went back to Moscow, took up quarters near Lenin in the Kremlin, and
there he remains.
It was Stootchka who wrote the Soviet constitution, as well as most
of the present laws. Evidently he did not always find writing laws
an easy task. He often confessed his inability to judge just how the
personal and family life would grow up around the great economic change
which had taken place. Stootchka is nearly seventy and he felt that he
might be a little old-fashioned in regard to some matters, especially
concerning marriage and divorce. In the end he left it for those most
concerned to decide.
One afternoon he called into his office five young Russian women, all
typical revolutionists, and said to them: “For centuries women have
been oppressed, they have been the victims of prejudice, superstition
and the selfish desires of men. In writing the marriage laws I don’t
mind if women have even a slight advantage over men. What I am
concerned with most is to see that they get full justice. So I have
asked you here as representatives of the new order. Think these matters
over and give me your conclusions.”
Naturally, these conclusions had to be voted on by the All-Russian
Congress of Soviets, but since they were passed and written, it is now
an historical fact that five young women are the real authors of the
new and rather free marriage laws.
ALIEXIEV IVANOVITCH RYKOV
No other Russian enjoys the solid political and popular backing of
Aliexiev Rykov; he is the logical successor to Lenin.
Rykov is one of those “unknown-quantity” men which are in every
government and every political party and who are on the “inside” of
every government decision, men who silently assume more and more power
but remain unknown to the press until some event brings them to the
public attention. Rykov, although he has held for several years four
of the most important posts in Russia, was never heard of in England
or France or America until Lenin’s illness brought to everyone’s lips
the question of who would be the next Premier. Rumor suggested Kaminev
and Trotsky and numerous other Commissars. As Rykov himself explained
to me, “none of these men could take Lenin’s place for the very logical
reason that they had held government posts which had nothing to do with
the Premiership. It was like expecting one of your Secretaries of War
or Navy to take your President’s place in case your President died or
fell ill.” Rykov, happening to be vice-Premier, automatically became
acting-Premier. (Under the Soviets this office is called Chairman of
the People’s Council of Commissars.)
Rykov’s background is interesting and worth knowing, since he will
be a figure of importance in Russia for a long time to come. He is
forty-one years old and, aside from being Premier, he is vice-Chairman
of the Council of Labor and Defense, Member of the Presidium of the
All Russian Congress of Soviets and Member of the Central Executive
Committee of the Communist Party.
He was born of a peasant family living in the province of Vatka.
His education was paid for by an elder sister who had married well.
Because of revolutionary activities he was sentenced to Siberia and
served seven years in _solitary confinement_. When he told me this, I
was so astonished that I asked him to repeat it. It is a trial which
would have broken almost any man; yet I think I never met a man with
less “nerves” than Rykov has. By his manner and his good humor and
his serenity, he resembles Lenin to a startling degree. It is rather
amazing that Russia produced two men of the same type during the same
period. That is one reason why the government machinery ran along so
smoothly after Lenin stepped out.
Rykov has been in such close touch with Lenin in the last years that he
almost anticipates Lenin’s decisions. He told me that for three years
he has been sharing Lenin’s work. When the Council of Labor and Defense
was formed during the blockade, Lenin headed it and Rykov and Alexander
Demietrievitch Tsurupa served with Lenin. They also shared Lenin’s work
on the Council of People’s Commissars; and when Rykov was temporarily
elevated to Lenin’s office, Tsurupa was elevated to Rykov’s. As Lenin
grew stronger, after his operation, Rykov went to the country about
once a fortnight to consult him on vital matters of state. It is his
opinion that Lenin will soon be back in the Kremlin. But if Rykov’s
prediction does not prove true, Rykov himself will be able to guide,
with a steady hand, the shifting fortunes of war-torn and famine-ridden
Russia. I do not think he will go down in history as a great figure;
he will probably be overlooked by history as has many another such
unselfish and solid builder of empire, who worked always in the shadow
of a greater man.
JACOB PETERS, FEDORE S. DZERZHINSKY
AND THE
EXTRAORDINARY COMMISSION
It is a curious but indisputable fact that Jacob Peters, known to the
world as “Peters, the Terrorist,” has never been head of the Russian
Extraordinary Commission. Since its inception, Fedore Dzerzhinsky has
had charge of that sombre institution, which in the revolutionary
vernacular is known as the “Cheka,” a word derived from the initial
letters of “extraordinary” and “commission.”