I knew only the second. Probably the numerical designation came
from precedence in organization. I suspect that the first one had
degenerated somewhat in its clientele or membership or whatever they
call it, but that may be only snobbishness on my part--all the best
people went to the second _sobrania_, even including the chief of
police who was a comfortable person for the Siberians to have present
early in the morning drinking wine or vodka after the hour when the
sale of liquors was supposed to cease. At least, my friends assured me
that so long as the chief was present, they felt perfectly safe from
police interference on the score of making merry.
After midnight I felt the environment rather boring and got away unless
my departure might be construed as a reflection on the habits of my
Cossack friends who had invited me for the evening. In such cases, the
evenings last till daylight, and in Siberia in winter, daylight is
scarce.
The first night I went to the _sobrania_ I was amazed. It was a large
stone building of four stories and basement. The basement contained
billiard and coat-rooms. On the floor above was a ball-room and a
theater. The next upper floor held a splendid restaurant, decorated
by the inevitable and luxurious rubber plants. A German war-prisoner
orchestra served for balls, theater, and after-theater supper.
The plays were acted by a fairly good stock company, and it was said,
written by the wife of a local general. If the latter were true she
was an accomplished dramatist, though I doubt if the police would have
allowed her plays to run on Broadway.
It is probable that the general’s wife did write some of them, but more
likely that such as I saw she had adapted from French farces. They were
grossly nasty, to such an extent that it was evident that they had been
coarsened. Infidelity, of course, was the basis of each one, the wife
always being the fool. And one case of infidelity was not enough for a
single play--all the characters were involved in some way or another,
to the uproarious delight of the audience. And incidentally, I saw high
school children put on a play built around a button missing from the
most vital part of a man’s trousers.
No further comment needs to be made upon the public morals of the
Siberians. Yet curiously enough, in all the dancing I observed, there
was not a hint of anything approaching the suggestive. In fact, the
dances were most pretty, and most decorous. This might be explained by
the fact that the officers of Semenoff’s little army were always armed,
and are as quick with a pistol as the old-style Westerner of our own
country. Discretion in such cases is not always a matter of morals.
And while I am discussing the morals of the Siberians, I wish to say
that before sailing from San Francisco I went to a noted restaurant
for dinner, where the prominent people of the city dine. There I saw
a woman dance in a state so close to nudity that it was disgusting,
and she did not dance upon a stage, but among the tables. She was on
the program as a foreigner, a gipsy, I think. Thus as a nation we
are willing to be Orientalized. And our best people go farther in
permitting offense in dancing than do the Siberians, judging from what
I saw in that country.
After the play in the _sobrania_, the dancing begins, the seats being
taken up to make extra room. But between the acts a sort of promenade
begins, in which the whole audience goes out and walks around in
couples in the adjoining room. This promenade is characteristic of all
public gatherings, and leads one to believe that the people are most
gentle toward each other in all relations--the men link arms, and walk
together, smoking and chatting; men and women walk together and talk
animatedly; there is much bowing, and exchange of polite salutations
between friends. And this promenade once begun, continues through
all the time of dancing, so that but about half those present at any
particular time are on the dancing floor.
While I was in Chita Cossack officers were there from the Don, the
Urals, the Ussuri, the Crimea. There were handsome Georgians in flowing
capes lined with red and thrown over the shoulders to expose the inner
colorings. They wore rifle cartridges sewn into the breasts of their
tunics in regulation Cossack style, and sabers and scimitars with
jeweled hilts and scabbards of silver with exquisite filigree work.
When some of these men reached a point of exhilaration which prevented
them from remaining quiet, they improvised dances of their native
heaths as exhibitions, consisting of queer gesturings, much leaping and
clicking of heels in air, and intricate dance steps, all being done
with great skill to the accompaniment of barbaric cries in keeping
with the performance. Such exhibitions were popular and frequent, and
at times the general dancing stopped entirely in order that all hands
might enjoy the spectacle.
And while this merry-making was going on inside, Semenoff’s men outside
in the bitter cold were doing double guard to protect the building from
Bolshevist raids or uprisings. Many a night going to the _sobrania_
with British officers and Captain and Mrs. B----, we were challenged
and halted by patrols, and on our way back to the hotel our drosky was
frequently held up by a group of men about a bon-fire in the street and
not permitted to go on till we had identified ourselves.
I suspected that this excessive caution was due more to Semenoff’s
desire to impress the city with the protection he afforded, than a
necessity for vigilance. By this method Semenoff demonstrated his worth
to the bankers and merchants of the city, so that he found it easier to
“borrow” money for his military and other necessities.
But to go out every evening to theaters and dinners, knowing that
venturing forth into the cold night means to be challenged by
none-too-careful sentries (some of them more or less under the
influence of vodka and likely to shoot first and challenge afterward)
revealed some traits of the Siberian character. They will have their
amusement despite all odds; they do not worry overmuch about the
condition of their government; they curse certain foreigners for coming
in and protecting them and yet are suspicious of every native who
sets himself up as a military leader; they talk of their great love
of Russia but if they have their choice between going to a salacious
play or to a public gathering to discuss the affairs of their stricken
country, they choose the play. There they know they will enjoy
themselves and can go through the forms of excessive politeness with
their friends and even with officers belonging to the armies of Cossack
and Russian leaders who are mistrusted.
But if they all gathered to discuss the welfare of Russia they know
the meeting would probably end in a near-riot, if not open warfare. So
they find it easier to be charmingly hospitable to possible enemies,
and presently whispering behind the backs of the possible enemies about
their treason to Holy Russia.
In the meantime the reactionary forces grow stronger, the general
disorder gradually converts the people to a belief that it would be
better for a monarchy to be restored, and certain imperial personages
lurk in Harbin or other hiding places, waiting for the time when
the population will tire of revolutionary conditions and demand a
restoration of the throne.
These monarchists speak vaguely of a “proper time” in the future.
Most of them have plenty of money, and enjoy themselves waiting for
this “proper time.” The poorer peoples are steadily consuming food
surpluses, raising less each year; they are wearing out their clothes
and gradually approaching beggary while they keep up a sort of
continual celebration over their freedom, as they call it.
The monarchists can afford to bide their time. Our diplomats wait and
wait for “things to settle down.” They predict that Bolshevism will
burn itself out, when as a matter of fact the fuse is burning closer to
more destruction all the time. And Russian and Germany money is being
spent in various countries of the world for the purpose of spreading
Bolshevist ideas, in order that other countries will have troubles
of their own and be compelled to leave Russia alone. These ideas are
nothing but class hatred worked out subtly and made to appeal to people
whose reasoning powers are most primitive--or to educated “idealists”
who either have addled brains in their heads or Bolshevist money in
their pockets.
Tell me how people amuse themselves and I will tell you what they are;
tell me that they seek only amusement when their country is in ruins,
and they cannot tell me that the patriotism they prate about is genuine
patriotism. It struck me that the Siberians were more concerned with
what went down their gullets than with a decent government and a decent
future for themselves and their children.
People get the government they deserve. People are responsible for
their governments. If they assert that their rulers led them into war,
it is not the fault of their rulers, but their own, for their rulers
know them well enough to know what they could be led into. If people
whine that they are oppressed by an autocracy, they confess that there
is something lacking in themselves. If they howl against capitalism,
when all the things they have could only be produced for them by a
system of capital invested to good purpose, they lack brains; and if
they cannot devise a government which protects them from exploitation
they deserve to be exploited.
I do not believe that all capitalists combine power with justice,
any more than I believe that all working men understand the laws of
economics and would create a régime of justice if they had all power in
their hands. They mistake the machine which has been created to produce
jobs for them, as the machine by which they themselves create, when as
a matter of fact they themselves are only a part of the machine. That
they happen to be part of that machine is not the fault of the inventor
of the machine or its owner, but their own.
Of course, the necessity for labor, on their part may be due to a lack
of opportunity due to bad government, lack of education, misfortune or
the thousand and one elements of which an individual’s history may be
composed. A man running a loom might have been a scientist if he had
been educated, but he cannot turn himself into a scientist by burning
the factory in which he works.
This relation to work and play in connection with Siberia I believe to
be vital both in Siberia and in other parts of the world. And I feel it
necessary to become personal in order to make clear what I mean in a
chapter dealing primarily with Siberian love of amusement.
As a boy I worked in a woolen mill as a weaver. In order to study
while my loom was running, I fastened books to the top of the frame
and in moments when the loom did not need my attention, I would read a
page or two out of a book. By this method I often got through a book
a day in addition to producing the regular quantity of cloth. The odd
moments I gave to my books were spent by my fellow-weavers in friendly
conversation or in skylarking.
I was laughed at for trying to acquire an education. I lost caste with
young chaps of my own age for “trying to be better than a weaver.” And
right then I learned this truth: People write or talk about autocracy
of capital, or autocracy of government, or autocracy of class, but--the
greatest autocrat in the world is the ignorant person--he resents
everybody who is not as ignorant as himself, and he seeks to pull down
to his level those who would surpass him in ability, manual or mental.
I mention this because I found exactly the same attitude of mind
on the part of the “workers” in Siberia, as I found among my former
loom-mates. It was that no one works unless he wears old clothes and
appears at a certain place at a certain time to labor for a certain
period.
The Siberian has much more reason for having that attitude than the
American, for the former has been prevented from gaining an education,
or thinks he has, and has been told repeatedly that only such labor as
he understands, produces anything.
Just as many a laborer resents a white shirt, a collar and cuffs, a
well-tailored suit worn by a man who apparently does no hard work, the
laborer sometimes resents good grammar and good manners from any man
who is thrown in contact with him.
It is said that Trotsky goes about unshaven, and in an old suit
of clothes, when he wishes to speak to his adherents on terms of
familiarity. Having taught the proletariat to destroy the upper
classes, he is consistent enough outwardly to pull himself down to the
level of his dupes. This is merely the trick of the sly demagogue, who,
when he goes among working men seeking votes, puts off the frock coat
and silk hat and gets into a cap and overalls. The inference is that he
must be honest and is sincerely seeking to represent the working man
because he appears in the habiliments of labor.
This spirit of class hatred has been developed to the ultimate degree
in Siberia, and the man with a clean collar, a shave, and clean hands
must be an enemy of the proletariat, as the proletarian sees him,
simply by having those things.
I heard the provodnik of my fourth-class car refer to me insolently as
an aristocrat because he observed me trying to shave and wash my face.
Two days later, having allowed myself to become unshaven and otherwise
unkempt, he became most friendly, and instead of regarding me as an
aristocrat, began to address me as “comrade.” I had evidently won his
good regard by being dirty.
So amusement is closely identified with the condition of a people,
both in their material and spiritual welfare, as well as in the evils
of a bad government. When people insist upon having amusement which
they cannot afford, they are ripe for the tyrant, and their government
goes to pot. Prosperity has done more damage to the human race than
adversity--prosperity which is used only for an excess of amusement.
With the _sobranias_ of Chita filled to overflowing every night, with
wealthy and poor seeking to be diverted with vodka, dancing and eating
all night, and sleeping most of the day, where is it possible to begin
aiding them in the forming of a government of their own? If they are
willing to allow various self-seeking usurpers of government to set
up military establishments and gradually become local princelings
waiting for the time that their power can be sold out to some imperial
personage who wishes to restore a throne, why should we quarrel with
these princelings or about them--the Semenoffs, the Kalmikoffs and
others who are of the same stripe?
That is what the monarchists mean when they talk about the “proper
time,” to restore the monarchy--the time when the local chiefs find it
convenient to sell out, and there is a buyer handy who knows how to
wear a crown--and swing a saber over the heads of the multitude.
Then there will be people in Russia and in that part of the Empire of
old known as Siberia, who will rise and assert that the Allies, or
the United States, or somebody, betrayed them. They will say that our
“watchful waiting,” and our assurances of friendship and our efforts to
aid with Red Cross supplies, and our “we don’t know what to do” policy,
was merely our waiting for a “proper time” to hand them over to a new
Czar.
That is why I say the _sobranias_ with their dirty plays, filled with
audiences roaring gleefully over indecency, should have been filled
nightly with Siberians threshing out the problems which confronted
them. No. They were concerned chiefly with consuming the supply of
vodka, with the women who sifted through the port of Vladivostok or
came up from Harbin, and with cursing discreetly behind their hands
the gentlemanly Japanese officer who went to see the fun. I wonder if
some of these Japanese, accused by the Siberians of secretly desiring
to capture Siberia, did not realize with Japanese astuteness that the
Siberians were conquering themselves. There is no necessity for the
Japanese fighting with the Siberians for Siberia, when the Siberians
seem to be bent upon eliminating themselves.
Of course the Siberians are friendly to the United States--remember
that the American officer whom I relieved in Chita had been threatened
with assassination. This officer was a foreigner, who by faithful
service in our old regular army, had acquired a commission in our
native forces of the Philippines, known as the Philippine Scouts. I am
not sure what his nationality was--a Pole or a Ukranian. I think the
chief objection to him was the belief in certain quarters in Chita that
he was a Jew.
The United States makes a mistake when it sends a Jewish official to
represent it in any foreign country which is anti-Jewish, not because
the Jew is incapable in any way, but because the nation he represents
is forgotten, and only the fact that he is a Jew, is remembered. We of
the United States who have no racial or religious prejudices against
the Jew find it hard to realize the hatred that is held for them in a
country like Russia.
Since my stay in Siberia I am convinced that the hatred of the Jew is
neither racial nor religious at bottom. It is based on a resentment
of any person or race which is ambitious, which has foresight, which
attends to business, and so gets ahead. The Chinese in Siberia are
hated as much as the Jews, though not so badly persecuted. This is
because, as I understand it, the Chinese attend to their business while
the native is sleeping off the effects of liquor or late hours. The
Siberian dislikes anybody who represents “unfair competition”--the
doing a full day’s work. I believe the Japanese are hated chiefly for
the same reason--being up and doing, looking ahead, preparing for the
cold winter during the warm summer. All lazy persons resent the man or
woman who works. The Siberian was born lazy.
The general Russian workman in a factory will not work a minute more
than he is compelled to. I read an article by a Russian woman in this
country who ascribes this laziness of her countrymen to an artistic
temperament--they need a certain amount of dreaming, and their
spiritual condition is better than that of the American, who is always
too busy to enjoy life and understand the inner meanings of life. That
may be so, but I believe that the average American working man who
arrives at his work punctually and quits with the whistle, gets as much
of the “inner meanings of life” as the Russian who reaches the factory
an hour late, and then wants to assassinate the owner of the factory
because the boss scolds the Russian for being late. Maybe this yearning
for assassination is indicative of understanding the inner meaning of
life.
To disagree in Siberia means to desire to kill. That is one reason why
the _sobranias_ were full of rollickers every night in Chita. To sit
in a theater beside a man who is laughing at a play while you yourself
laugh at the same things he does, prevents anything in the nature of
a disagreement. Two men can get drunk together with a certain degree
of safety, but in Siberia if they should meet sober and begin to talk
about government, they might fight a duel. Perhaps they would rather
remain alive than to attempt to agree on how the nation should be
conducted.
While I was in Siberia I read in an American newspaper that an American
member of Congress demanded information as to why the United States was
not coöperating with the Russian Zemstvos in organizing a nucleus for
a representative Russian government. If he had been with me the day I
read of his demand, I could have taken him and shown him a zemstvo so
drunk that its members did not know their first names. The only way
in which anybody might have coöperated with them, would have been to
buy them a bottle of vodka. This was their way of killing time while
waiting for our government to make up its mind on Siberia.
In answer to my suggestion that the Siberians of Chita should have
gathered to discuss government in their _sobranias_, they might well
state that if they attempted to discuss government in any way than
to pass resolutions in favor of Semenoff’s government, they stood a
good chance of being executed with dispatch. It would be a fairly
good answer. Especially, as the United States merely showed mild
interest when Semenoff executed a batch of people. If the United States
as represented by the Siberian expedition, the commander being so
instructed and properly backed up, had told Semenoff that he had not
yet acquired the right to execute anybody and that he would not be
allowed to usurp that right, that would have been coöperation with the
people of Siberia. But coöperation of that kind might be interpreted as
interference, and we were pledged by somebody not to interfere with the
Siberians.
So the Siberians took good care, and wisely, not to interfere with
Semenoff. But we remained in Siberia with our forces, and proved
ourselves to be so gentle and considerate of others, that certain
Siberians have dared to interfere with us to the extent of killing some
of our officers and soldiers.
The Semenoffs and the Kalmikoffs did not love us any more because we
did not interfere with them; the Siberians did not love us because we
did not interfere with these petty tyrants; but we would have won the
love of all hands if we had done something--that is, all hands but the
Bolshevists, and since we have probed into their works at home, I doubt
if we seek their love. At least the Bolshevists would have learned to
respect us if we had done something beside invite them to the Prinkipo
conference, an invitation which they greeted with loud laughter and
other demonstrations of their scorn for our good intentions.
So the _sobranias_ of Chita, and other cities in Siberia, served to
while away the time for the populace, while they waited for the United
States to make up its mind about what to do in Siberia. If we had taken
a definite stand, and demanded that the Siberians show us what they
could do while we protected them from themselves and the Cossacks, the
_sobranias_ might have been filled with committees, and delegates, and
people learning something about what they must do to have a government,
instead of being filled with revelers.
If we think we can wait till these people meet our ideas of what
government is, we are making a great mistake. We must show them. They
have been kept ignorant for centuries, in order that they might be
kept in subjection. They have not been educated, because the ruling
class wanted cheap labor. Cheap labor becomes very expensive labor
when it destroys the employer, the factory and the government. Cheap
labor that listens to such arguments as the Bolshevists give it, is a
mighty costly commodity to any nation, whether that labor is native or
imported.
XXI
POLITICS AND PRINKIPO
All the time that I was in Chita, Ataman Semenoff and Kolchak were at
odds. Kolchak, accusing Semenoff with interfering with railroad traffic
at Chita and so hampering Kolchak’s “All Russian Government” in Omsk,
issued his famous order in which he denounced Semenoff as a traitor.
And while that order stood, Kolchak or Kolchak’s officers, asked
Semenoff to send his forces to Irkutsk and other points toward Omsk to
anticipate Bolshevist uprisings which were threatened.
Semenoff declined to lend his forces so long as Kolchak branded him
as a traitor. He denied that he had interfered with trains bound to
or from Omsk, and denied that he had cut telegraph wires or held up
messages.
On January second, Ivanoff-Renoff (Ivanov-Renov), “Commanding General
of the Siberian army and Ataman of Siberian Cossacks,” according to the
card I got from him, arrived in Chita in a special train with a staff.
He had come from Kolchak to treat with Semenoff, and find out on what
terms Semenoff would join Kolchak against the Bolshevists.