BENEATH THE SURFACE
The terrible story I had been listening to for two weeks broke over
me like a storm. Was this the Revolution I had believed in all my
life, yearned for, and strove to interest others in, or was it a
caricature--a hideous monster that had come to jeer and mock me?
The Communists I had met daily during six months--self-sacrificing,
hard-working men and women imbued with a high ideal--were such people
capable of the treachery and horrors charged against them? Zinoviev,
Radek, Zorin, Ravitch, and many others I had learned to know--could
they in the name of an ideal lie, defame, torture, kill? But, then--had
not Zorin told me that capital punishment had been abolished in Russia?
Yet I learned shortly after my arrival that hundreds of people had been
shot on the very eve of the day when the new decree went into effect,
and that as a matter of fact shooting by the Tcheka had never ceased.
That my friends were not exaggerating when they spoke of tortures by
the Tcheka, I also learned from other sources. Complaints about the
fearful conditions in Petrograd prisons had become so numerous that
Moscow was apprised of the situation. A Tcheka inspector came to
investigate. The prisoners being afraid to speak, immunity was promised
them. But no sooner had the inspector left than one of the inmates, a
young boy, who had been very outspoken about the brutalities practised
by the Tcheka, was dragged out of his cell and cruelly beaten.
Why did Zorin resort to lies? Surely he must have known that I would
not remain in the dark very long. And then, was not Lenin also guilty
of the same methods? "Anarchists of ideas [_ideyni_] are not in
our prisons," he had assured me. Yet at that very moment numerous
Anarchists filled the jails of Moscow and Petrograd and of many other
cities in Russia. In May, 1920, scores of them had been arrested in
Petrograd, among them two girls of seventeen and nineteen years of
age. None of the prisoners were charged with counter-revolutionary
activities: they were "Anarchists of ideas," to use Lenin's expression.
Several of them had issued a manifesto for the First of May, calling
attention to the appalling conditions in the factories of the
Socialist Republic. The two young girls who had circulated a handbill
against the "labour book," which had then just gone into effect, were
also arrested.
The labour book was heralded by the Bolsheviki as one of the great
Communist achievements. It would establish equality and abolish
parasitism, it was claimed. As a matter of fact, the labour book was
somewhat of the character of the yellow ticket issued to prostitutes
under the Tsarist régime. It was a record of every step one made, and
without it no step could be made. It bound its holder to his job, to
the city he lived in, and to the room he occupied. It recorded one's
political faith and party adherence, and the number of times he was
arrested. In short, a yellow ticket. Even some Communists resented the
degrading innovation. The Anarchists who protested against it were
arrested by the Tcheka. When certain leading Communists were approached
in the matter they repeated what Lenin had said: "No Anarchists of
ideas are in our prisons."
The aureole was falling from the Communists. All of them seemed to
believe that the end justified the means. I recalled the statements
of Radek at the first anniversary of the Third International, when
he related to his audience the "marvellous spread of Communism" in
America. "Fifty thousand Communists are in American prisons," he
exclaimed. "Molly Stimer, a girl of eighteen, and her male companions,
all Communists, had been deported from America for their Communist
activities." I thought at the time that Radek was misinformed. Yet it
seemed strange that he did not make sure of his facts before making
such assertions. They were dishonest and an insult to Molly Stimer and
her Anarchist comrades, added to the injustice they had suffered at the
hands of the American plutocracy.
During the past several months I had seen and heard enough to become
somewhat conversant with the Communist psychology, as well as with
the theories and methods of the Bolsheviki. I was no longer surprised
at the story of their double-dealing with Makhno, the brutalities
practised by the Tcheka, the lies of Zorin. I had come to realize
that the Communists believed implicitly in the Jesuitic formula that
the end justifies _all_ means. In fact, they gloried in that formula.
Any suggestion of the value of human life, quality of character, the
importance of revolutionary integrity as the basis of a new social
order, was repudiated as "bourgeois sentimentality," which had no place
in the revolutionary scheme of things. For the Bolsheviki the end to
be achieved was the Communist State, or the so-called Dictatorship of
the Proletariat. Everything which advanced that end was justifiable
and revolutionary. The Lenins, Radeks, and Zorins were therefore quite
consistent. Obsessed by the infallibility of their creed, giving of
themselves to the fullest, they could be both heroic and despicable at
the same time. They could work twenty hours a day, live on herring and
tea, and order the slaughter of innocent men and women. Occasionally
they sought to mask their killings by pretending a "misunderstanding,"
for doesn't the end justify all means? They could employ torture and
deny the inquisition, they could lie and defame, and call themselves
idealists. In short, they could make themselves and others believe that
everything was legitimate and right from the revolutionary viewpoint;
any other policy was weak, sentimental, or a betrayal of the Revolution.
On a certain occasion, when I passed criticism on the brutal way
delicate women were driven into the streets to shovel snow, insisting
that even if they had belonged to the bourgeoisie they were human,
and that physical fitness should be taken into consideration, a
Communist said to me: "You should be ashamed of yourself; you, an old
revolutionist, and yet so sentimental." It was the same attitude that
some Communists assumed toward Angelica Balabanova, because she was
always solicitous and eager to help wherever possible. In short, I had
come to see that the Bolsheviki were social puritans who sincerely
believed that they alone were ordained to save mankind. My relations
with the Bolsheviki became more strained, my attitude toward the
Revolution as I found it more critical.
One thing grew quite clear to me: I could not affiliate myself with
the Soviet Government; I could not accept any work which would place
me under the control of the Communist machine. The Commissariat of
Education was so thoroughly dominated by that machine that it was
hopeless to expect anything but routine work. In fact, unless one was
a Communist one could accomplish almost nothing. I had been eager
to join Lunacharsky, whom I considered one of the most cultivated
and least dogmatic of the Communists in high position. But I became
convinced that Lunacharsky himself was a helpless cog in the machine,
his best efforts constantly curtailed and checked. I had also learned
a great deal about the system of favouritism and graft that prevailed
in the management of the schools and the treatment of children. Some
schools were in splendid condition, the children well fed and well
clad, enjoying concerts, theatricals, dances, and other amusements.
But the majority of the schools and children's homes were squalid,
dirty, and neglected. Those in charge of the "preferred" schools had
little difficulty in procuring everything needed for their charges,
often having an over-supply. But the caretakers of the "common" schools
would waste their time and energies by the week going about from one
department to another, discouraged and faint with endless waiting
before they could obtain the merest necessities.
At first I ascribed this condition of affairs to the scarcity of food
and materials. I heard it said often enough that the blockade and
intervention were responsible. To a large extent that was true. Had
Russia not been so starved, mismanagement and graft would not have
had such fatal results. But added to the prevalent scarcity of things
was the dominant notion of Communist propaganda. Even the children
had to serve that end. The well-kept schools were for show, for the
foreign missions and delegates who were visiting Russia. Everything was
lavished on these show schools at the cost of the others.
I remembered how everybody was startled in Petrograd by an article in
the Petrograd _Pravda_ of May, disclosing appalling conditions in the
schools. A committee of the Young Communist organizations investigated
some of the institutions. They found the children dirty, full of
vermin, sleeping on filthy mattresses, fed on miserable food, punished
by being locked in dark rooms for the night, forced to go without their
suppers, and even beaten. The number of officials and employees in the
schools was nothing less than criminal. In one school, for instance,
there were 138 of them to 125 children. In another, 40 to 25 children.
All these parasites were taking the bread from the very mouths of the
unfortunate children.
The Zorins had spoken to me repeatedly of Lillina, the woman in
charge of the Petrograd Educational Department. She was a wonderful
worker, they said, devoted and able. I had heard her speak on several
occasions, but was not impressed: she looked prim and self-satisfied,
a typical Puritan schoolma'am. But I would not form an opinion until
I had talked with her. At the publication of the school disclosures I
decided to see Lillina. We conversed over an hour about the schools
in her charge, about education in general, the problem of defective
children and their treatment. She made light of the abuses in her
schools, claiming that "the young comrades had exaggerated the
defects." At any rate, she added, the guilty had already been removed
from the schools.
Similarly to many other responsible Communists Lillina was consecrated
to her work and gave all her time and energies to it. Naturally, she
could not personally oversee everything; the show schools being the
most important in her estimation, she devoted most of her time to them.
The other schools were left in the care of her numerous assistants,
whose fitness for the work was judged largely according to their
political usefulness. Our talk strengthened my conviction that I could
have no part in the work of the Bolshevik Board of Education.
The Board of Health offered as little opportunity for real
service--service that should not discriminate in favour of show
hospitals or the political views of the patients. This principle of
discrimination prevailed, unfortunately, even in the sick rooms.
Like all Communist institutions, the Board of Health was headed by a
political Commissar, Doctor Pervukhin. He was anxious to secure my
assistance, proposing to put me in charge of factory, dispensary,
or district nursing--a very flattering and tempting offer, and one
that appealed to me strongly. I had several conferences with Doctor
Pervukhin, but they led to no practical result.
Whenever I visited his department I found groups of men and women
waiting, endlessly waiting. They were doctors and nurses, members of
the _intelligentsia_--none of them Communists--who were employed in
various medical branches, but their time and energies were being wasted
in the waiting rooms of Doctor Pervukhin, the political Commissar. They
were a sorry lot, dispirited and dejected, those men and women, once
the flower of Russia. Was I to join this tragic procession, submit to
the political yoke? Not until I should become convinced that the yoke
was indispensable to the revolutionary process would I consent to it. I
felt that I must first secure work of a non-partisan character, work
that would enable me to study conditions in Russia and get into direct
touch with the people, the workers and peasants. Only then should I be
able to find my way out of the chaos of doubt and mental anguish that I
had fallen prey to.