REST HOMES FOR WORKERS
Since my return from Moscow I noticed a change in Zorin's attitude:
he was reserved, distant, and not as friendly as when we first met.
I ascribed it to the fact that he was overworked and fatigued, and
not wishing to waste his valuable time I ceased visiting the Zorins
as frequently as before. One day, however, he called up to ask if
Alexander Berkman and myself would join him in certain work he was
planning, and which was to be done in hurry-up American style, as he
put it. On calling to see him we found him rather excited--an unusual
thing for Zorin who was generally quiet and reserved. He was full of
a new scheme to build "rest homes" for workers. He explained that on
Kameniy Ostrov were the magnificent mansions of the Stolypins, the
Polovtsovs, and others of the aristocracy and bourgeoisie, and that he
was planning to turn them into recreation centres for workers. Would
we join in the work? Of course, we consented eagerly, and the next
morning we went over to inspect the island. It was indeed an ideal
spot, dotted with magnificent mansions, some of them veritable museums,
containing rare gems of painting, tapestry, and furniture. The man in
charge of the buildings called our attention to the art treasures,
protesting that they would be injured or entirely destroyed if put to
the planned use. But Zorin was set on his scheme. "Recreation homes for
workers are more important than art," he said.
We returned to the Astoria determined to devote ourselves to the work
and to go at it intensively, as the houses were to be ready for the
First of May. We prepared detailed plans for dining rooms, sleeping
chambers, reading rooms, theatre and lecture halls, and recreation
places for the workers. As the first and most necessary step we
proposed the organization of a dining room to feed the workers who were
to be employed in preparing the place for their comrades. I had learned
from my previous experience with the hotels that much valuable time
was lost because of the failure to provide for those actually employed
on such work. Zorin consented and promised that we were to take charge
within a few days. But a week passed and nothing further was heard
about what was to be a rush job. Some time later Zorin called up to
ask us to accompany him to the island. On our arrival there we found
half-a-dozen Commissars already in charge, with scores of people idling
about. Zorin reassured us that matters would arrange themselves and
that we should have an opportunity to organize the work as planned.
However, we soon realized that the newly fledged officialdom was as
hard to cope with as the old bureaucracy.
Every Commissar had his favourites whom he managed to list as employed
on the job, thereby entitling them to bread rations and a meal.
Thus almost before any actual workers appeared on the scene, eighty
alleged "technicians" were already in possession of dinner tickets and
bread cards. The men actually mobilized for the work received hardly
anything. The result was general sabotage. Most of the men sent over
to prepare the rest homes for the workers came from concentration
camps: they were convicts and military deserters. I had often watched
them at work, and in justice to them it must be said that they did not
overexert themselves. "Why should we," they would say; "we are fed on
Sovietski soup; dirty dishwater it is, and we receive only what is
left over from the idlers who order us about. And who will rest in
these homes? Not we or our brothers in the factories. Only those who
belong to the party or who have a pull will enjoy this place. Besides,
the spring is near; we are needed at home on the farm. Why are we kept
here?" Indeed, they did not exert themselves, those stalwart sons of
Russia's soil. There was no incentive: they had no point of contact
with the life about them, and there was no one who could translate to
them the meaning of work in revolutionary Russia. They were dazed by
war, revolution, and hunger--nothing could rouse them out of their
stupor.
Many of the buildings on Kameniy Ostrov had been taken up for boarding
schools and homes for defectives; some were occupied by old professors,
teachers, and other intellectuals. Since the Revolution these people
lived there unmolested, but now orders came to vacate, to make room
for the rest homes. As almost no provision had been made to supply
the dispossessed ones with other quarters, they were practically
forced into the streets. Those friendly with Zinoviev, Gorki, or other
influential Communists took their troubles to them, but persons lacking
"pull" found no redress. The scenes of misery which I was compelled to
witness daily exhausted my energies. It was all unnecessarily cruel,
impractical, without any bearing on the Revolution. Added to this was
the chaos and confusion which prevailed. The bureaucratic officials
seemed to take particular delight in countermanding each other's
orders. Houses already in the process of renovation, and on which much
work and material were spent, would suddenly be left unfinished and
some other work begun. Mansions filled with art treasures were turned
into night lodgings, and dirty iron cots put among antique furniture
and oil paintings--an incongruous, stupid waste of time and energy.
Zorin would frequently hold consultations by the hour with the staff
of artists and engineers making plans for theatres, lecture halls, and
amusement places, while the Commissars sabotaged the work. I stood the
painful and ridiculous situation for two weeks, then gave up the matter
in despair.
Early in May the workers' rest homes on Kameniy Ostrov were opened with
much pomp, music, and speeches. Glowing accounts were sent broadcast
of the marvellous things done for the workers in Russia. In reality,
it was Coney Island transferred to the environs of Petrograd, a gaudy
showplace for credulous visitors. From that time on Zorin's demeanour
to me changed. He became cold, even antagonistic. No doubt he began to
sense the struggle which was going on within me, and the break which
was bound to come. I did, however, see much of Lisa Zorin, who had just
become a mother. I nursed her and her baby, glad of the opportunity
thus to express my gratitude for the warm friendship the Zorins had
shown me during my first months in Russia. I appreciated their sterling
honesty and devotion. Both were so favourably placed politically that
they could be supplied with everything they wanted, yet Lisa Zorin
lacked the simplest garments for her baby. "Thousands of Russian
working women have no more, and why should I?" Lisa would say. When
she was so weak that she could not nurse her baby, Zorin could not be
induced to ask for special rations. I had to conspire against them by
buying eggs and butter on the market to save the lives of mother and
child. But their fine quality of character made my inner struggle the
more difficult. Reason urged me to look the social facts in the face.
My personal attachment to the Communists I had learned to know and
esteem refused to accept the facts. Never mind the evils--I would say
to myself--as long as there are such as the Zorins and the Balabanovas,
there must be something vital in the ideas they represent. I held on
tenaciously to the phantom I had myself created.