MOSCOW: FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Coming from Petrograd to Moscow is like being suddenly transferred
from a desert to active life, so great is the contrast. On reaching
the large open square in front of the main Moscow station I was amazed
at the sight of busy crowds, cabbies, and porters. The same picture
presented itself all the way from the station to the Kremlin. The
streets were alive with men, women, and children. Almost everybody
carried a bundle, or dragged a loaded sleigh. There was life, motion,
and movement, quite different from the stillness that oppressed me in
Petrograd.
I noticed considerable display of the military in the city, and scores
of men dressed in leather suits with guns in their belts. "Tcheka
men, our Extraordinary Commission," explained Radek. I had heard of
the Tcheka before: Petrograd talked of it with dread and hatred.
However, the soldiers and Tchekists were never much in evidence in
the city on the Neva. Here in Moscow they seemed everywhere. Their
presence reminded me of a remark Jack Reed had made: "Moscow is a
military encampment," he had said; "spies everywhere, the bureaucracy
most autocratic. I always feel relieved when I get out of Moscow.
But, then, Petrograd is a proletarian city and is permeated with the
spirit of the Revolution. Moscow always was hierarchical. It is much
more so now." I found that Jack Reed was right. Moscow was indeed
hierarchical. Still the life was intense, varied, and interesting.
What struck me most forcibly, besides the display of militarism, was
the preoccupation of the people. There seemed to be no common interest
between them. Everyone rushed about as a detached unit in quest of
his own, pushing and knocking against everyone else. Repeatedly I saw
women or children fall from exhaustion without any one stopping to lend
assistance. People stared at me when I would bend over the heap on the
slippery pavement or gather up the bundles that had fallen into the
street. I spoke to friends about what looked to me like a strange lack
of fellow-feeling. They explained it as a result partly of the general
distrust and suspicion created by the Tcheka, and partly due to the
absorbing task of getting the day's food. One had neither vitality nor
feeling left to think of others. Yet there did not seem to be such a
scarcity of food as in Petrograd, and the people were warmer and better
dressed.
I spent much time on the streets and in the market places. Most of
the latter, as also the famous Soukharevka, were in full operation.
Occasionally soldiers would raid the markets; but as a rule they were
suffered to continue. They presented the most vital and interesting
part of the city's life. Here gathered proletarian and aristocrat,
Communist and bourgeois, peasant and intellectual. Here they were bound
by the common desire to sell and buy, to trade and bargain. Here one
could find for sale a rusty iron pot alongside of an exquisite ikon;
an old pair of shoes and intricately worked lace; a few yards of cheap
calico and a beautiful old Persian shawl. The rich of yesterday, hungry
and emaciated, denuding themselves of their last glories; the rich of
to-day buying--it was indeed an amazing picture in revolutionary Russia.
Who was buying the finery of the past, and where did the purchasing
power come from? The buyers were numerous. In Moscow one was not so
limited as to sources of information as in Petrograd; the very streets
furnished that source.
The Russian people even after four years of war and three years of
revolution remained unsophisticated. They were suspicious of strangers
and reticent at first. But when they learned that one had come from
America and did not belong to the governing political party, they
gradually lost their reserve. Much information I gathered from them and
some explanation of the things that perplexed me since my arrival. I
talked frequently with the workers and peasants and the women on the
markets.
The forces which had led up to the Russian Revolution had remained
_terra incognita_ to these simple folk, but the Revolution itself had
struck deep into their souls. They knew nothing of theories, but they
believed that there was to be no more of the hated _barin_ (master)
and now the _barin_ was again upon them. "The _barin_ has everything,"
they would say, "white bread, clothing, even chocolate, while we have
nothing." "Communism, equality, freedom," they jeered, "lies and
deception."
I would return to the National bruised and battered, my illusions
gradually shattered, my foundations crumbling. But I would not let
go. After all, I thought, the common people could not understand
the tremendous difficulties confronting the Soviet Government: the
imperialist forces arraigned against Russia, the many attacks which
drained her of her men who otherwise would be employed in productive
labour, the blockade which was relentlessly slaying Russia's young and
weak. Of course, the people could not understand these things, and I
must not be misled by their bitterness born of suffering. I must be
patient. I must get to the source of the evils confronting me.
The National, like the Petrograd Astoria, was a former hotel but not
nearly in as good condition. No rations were given out there except
three quarters of a pound of bread every two days. Instead there was
a common dining room where dinners and suppers were served. The meals
consisted of soup and a little meat, sometimes fish or pancakes, and
tea. In the evening we usually had _kasha_ and tea. The food was not
too plentiful, but one could exist on it were it not so abominably
prepared.
I saw no reason for this spoiling of provisions. Visiting the kitchen I
discovered an array of servants controlled by a number of officials,
commandants, and inspectors. The kitchen staff were poorly paid;
moreover, they were not given the same food served to us. They resented
this discrimination and their interest was not in their work. This
situation resulted in much graft and waste, criminal in the face of
the general scarcity of food. Few of the tenants of the National, I
learned, took their meals in the common dining room. They prepared or
had their meals prepared by servants in a separate kitchen set aside
for that purpose. There, as in the Astoria, I found the same scramble
for a place on the stove, the same bickering and quarrelling, the same
greedy, envious watching of each other. Was that Communism in action, I
wondered. I heard the usual explanation: Yudenitch, Denikin, Kolchak,
the blockade--but the stereotyped phrases no longer satisfied me.
Before I left Petrograd Jack Reed said to me: "When you reach Moscow,
look up Angelica Balabanova. She will receive you gladly and will put
you up should you be unable to find a room." I had heard of Balabanova
before, knew of her work, and was naturally anxious to meet her.
A few days after reaching Moscow I called her up. Would she see me?
Yes, at once, though she was not feeling well. I found Balabanova in
a small, cheerless room, lying huddled up on the sofa. She was not
prepossessing but for her eyes, large and luminous, radiating sympathy
and kindness. She received me most graciously, like an old friend, and
immediately ordered the inevitable samovar. Over our tea we talked
of America, the labour movement there, our deportation, and finally
about Russia. I put to her the questions I had asked many Communists
regarding the contrasts and discrepancies which confronted me at every
step. She surprised me by not giving the usual excuses; she was the
first who did not repeat the old refrain. She did refer to the scarcity
of food, fuel, and clothing which was responsible for much of the graft
and corruption; but on the whole she thought life itself mean and
limited. "A rock on which the highest hopes are shattered. Life thwarts
the best intentions and breaks the finest spirits," she said. Rather an
unusual view for a Marxian, a Communist, and one in the thick of the
battle. I knew she was then secretary of the Third International. Here
was a personality, one who was not a mere echo, one who felt deeply the
complexity of the Russian situation. I went away profoundly impressed,
and attracted by her sad, luminous eyes.
I soon discovered that Balabanova--or Balabanoff, as she preferred
to be called--was at the beck and call of everybody. Though poor in
health and engaged in many functions, she yet found time to minister
to the needs of her legion callers. Often she went without necessaries
herself, giving away her own rations, always busy trying to secure
medicine or some little delicacy for the sick and suffering. Her
special concern were the stranded Italians of whom there were quite
a number in Petrograd and Moscow. Balabanova had lived and worked in
Italy for many years until she almost became Italian herself. She felt
deeply with them, who were as far away from their native soil as from
events in Russia. She was their friend, their advisor, their main
support in a world of strife and struggle. Not only the Italians but
almost everyone else was the concern of this remarkable little woman:
no one needed a Communist membership card to Angelica's heart. No
wonder some of her comrades considered her a "sentimentalist who wasted
her precious time in philanthropy." Many verbal battles I had on this
score with the type of Communist who had become callous and hard,
altogether barren of the qualities which characterized the Russian
idealist of the past.
Similar criticism as of Balabanova I heard expressed of another leading
Communist, Lunacharsky. Already in Petrograd I was told sneeringly,
"Lunacharsky is a scatterbrain who wastes millions on foolish
ventures." But I was eager to meet the man who was the Commissar of one
of the important departments in Russia, that of education. Presently an
opportunity presented itself.
The Kremlin, the old citadel of Tsardom, I found heavily guarded and
inaccessible to the "common" man. But I had come by appointment and
in the company of a man who had an admission card, and therefore
passed the guard without trouble. We soon reached the Lunacharsky
apartments, situated in an old quaint building within the walls. Though
the reception room was crowded with people waiting to be admitted,
Lunacharsky called me in as soon as I was announced.
His greeting was very cordial. Did I "intend to remain a free bird"
was one of his first questions, or would I be willing to join him
in his work? I was rather surprised. Why should one have to give
up his freedom, especially in educational work? Were not initiative
and freedom essential? However, I had come to learn from Lunacharsky
about the revolutionary system of education in Russia, of which we
had heard so much in America. I was especially interested in the care
the children were receiving. The Moscow _Pravda_, like the Petrograd
newspapers, had been agitated by a controversy about the treatment
of the morally defective. I expressed surprise at such an attitude
in Soviet Russia. "Of course, it is all barbarous and antiquated,"
Lunacharsky said, "and I am fighting it tooth and nail. The sponsors
of prisons for children are old criminal jurists, still imbued
with Tsarist methods. I have organized a commission of physicians,
pedagogues, and psychologists to deal with this question. Of course,
those children must not be punished." I felt tremendously relieved.
Here at last was a man who had gotten away from the cruel old methods
of punishment. I told him of the splendid work done in capitalist
America by Judge Lindsay and of some of the experimental schools for
backward children. Lunacharsky was much interested. "Yes, that is just
what we want here, the American system of education," he exclaimed.
"You surely do not mean the American public school system?" I asked.
"You know of the insurgent movement in America against our public
school method of education, the work done by Professor Dewey and
others?" Lunacharsky had heard little about it. Russia had been so long
cut off from the western world and there was great lack of books on
modern education. He was eager to learn of the new ideas and methods. I
sensed in Lunacharsky a personality full of faith and devotion to the
Revolution, one who was carrying on the great work of education in a
physically and spiritually difficult environment.
He suggested the calling of a conference of teachers if I would talk
to them about the new tendencies in education in America, to which I
readily consented. Schools and other institutions in his charge were to
be visited later. I left Lunacharsky filled with new hope. I would join
him in his work, I thought. What greater service could one render the
Russian people?
During my visit to Moscow I saw Lunacharsky several times. He was
always the same kindly gracious man, but I soon began to notice that he
was being handicapped in his work by forces within his own party: most
of his good intentions and decisions never saw the light. Evidently
Lunacharsky was caught in the same machine that apparently held
everything in its iron grip. What was that machine? Who directed its
movements?
Although the control of visitors at the National was very strict, no
one being able to go in or out without a special _propusk_ [permit],
men and women of different political factions managed to call on me:
Anarchists, Left Social Revolutionists, Coöperators, and people I
had known in America and who had returned to Russia to play their
part in the Revolution. They had come with deep faith and high hope,
but I found almost all of them discouraged, some even embittered.
Though widely differing in their political views, nearly all of my
callers related an identical story, the story of the high tide of the
Revolution, of the wonderful spirit that led the people forward, of
the possibilities of the masses, the rôle of the Bolsheviki as the
spokesmen of the most extreme revolutionary slogans and their betrayal
of the Revolution after they had secured power. All spoke of the
Brest Litovsk peace as the beginning of the downward march. The Left
Social Revolutionists especially, men of culture and earnestness,
who had suffered much under the Tsar and now saw their hopes and
aspirations thwarted, were most emphatic in their condemnation. They
supported their statements by evidence of the havoc wrought by the
methods of forcible requisition and the punitive expeditions to the
villages, of the abyss created between town and country, the hatred
engendered between peasant and worker. They told of the persecution of
their comrades, the shooting of innocent men and women, the criminal
inefficiency, waste, and destruction.
How, then, could the Bolsheviki maintain themselves in power? After
all, they were only a small minority, about five hundred thousand
members as an exaggerated estimate. The Russian masses, I was told,
were exhausted by hunger and cowed by terrorism. Moreover, they had
lost faith in all parties and ideas. Nevertheless, there were frequent
peasant uprisings in various parts of Russia, but these were ruthlessly
quelled. There were also constant strikes in Moscow, Petrograd, and
other industrial centres, but the censorship was so rigid little ever
became known to the masses at large.
I sounded my visitors on intervention. "We want none of outside
interference," was the uniform sentiment. They held that it merely
strengthened the hands of the Bolsheviki. They felt that they could
not publicly even speak out against them so long as Russia was being
attacked, much less fight their régime. "Have not their tactics and
methods been imposed on the Bolsheviki by intervention and blockade?" I
argued. "Only partly so," was the reply. "Most of their methods spring
from their lack of understanding of the character and the needs of the
Russian people and the mad obsession of dictatorship, which is not even
the dictatorship of the proletariat but the dictatorship of a small
group _over_ the proletariat."
When I broached the subject of the People's Soviets and the elections
my visitors smiled. "Elections! There are no such things in Russia,
unless you call threats and terrorism elections. It is by these alone
that the Bolsheviki secure a majority. A few Mensheviki, Social
Revolutionists, or Anarchists are permitted to slip into the Soviets,
but they have not the shadow of a chance to be heard."
The picture painted looked black and dismal. Still I clung to my faith.