Early in the morning I got tea, and a bread card on which I
was given a very small allowance of brown bread, noticeably
better in quality than the compound of clay and straw which
made me ill in Moscow last summer. Then I went to find
Litvinov, and set out with him to walk to the Smolni
institute, once a school for the daughters of the aristocracy,
then the headquarters of the Soviet, then the headquarters of
the Soviet Government, and finally, after the Government's
evacuation to Moscow, bequeathed to the Northern
Commune and the Petrograd Soviet. The town, in daylight,
seemed less deserted, though it was obvious that the
"unloading" of the Petrograd population, which was
unsuccessfully attempted during the Kerensky regime, had
been accomplished to a large extent. This has been partly
the result of famine and of the stoppage of factories,
which in its turn is due to the impossibility of bringing fuel
and raw material to Petrograd. A very large proportion of
Russian factory hands have not, as in other countries, lost
their connection with their native villages. There was always
a considerable annual migration backwards and forwards
between the villages and the town, and great numbers of
workmen have gone home, carrying with them the ideas of
the revolution. It should also be remembered that the bulk
of the earlier formed units of the Red Army is composed of
workmen from the towns who, except in the case of
peasants mobilized in districts which have experienced an
occupation by the counter-revolutionaries, are more
determined and better understand the need for discipline
than the men from the country.
The most noticeable thing in Petrograd to anyone returning
after six months' absence is the complete disappearance of
armed men. The town seems to have returned to a perfectly
peaceable condition in the sense that the need for
revolutionary patrols has gone. Soldiers walking about no
longer carry their rifles, and the picturesque figures of
the revolution who wore belts of machine-gun cartridges
slung about their persons have gone.
The second noticeable thing, especially in the Nevsky, which
was once crowded with people too fashionably dressed, is
the general lack of new clothes. I did not see anybody
wearing clothes that looked less than two years old, with the
exception of some officers and soldiers who are as well
equipped nowadays as at the beginning of the war.
Petrograd ladies were particularly fond of boots, and of
boots there is an extreme shortage. I saw one young woman
in a well-preserved, obviously costly fur coat, and beneath
it straw shoes with linen wrappings.
We had started rather late, so we took a train half-way up
the Nevsky. The tram conductors are still women. The
price of tickets has risen to a rouble, usually, I noticed, paid
in stamps. It used to be ten kopecks.
The armoured car which used to stand at the entrance of
Smolni has disappeared and been replaced by a horrible
statue of Karl Marx, who stands, thick and heavy, on a stout
pedestal, holding behind him an enormous top-hat like
the muzzle of an eighteen-inch gun. The only signs of
preparations for defence that remain are the pair of light
field guns which, rather the worse for weather, still stand
under the pillars of the portico which they would probably
shake to pieces if ever they should be fired. Inside the
routine was as it used to be, and when I turned down the
passage to get my permit to go upstairs, I could hardly
believe that I had been away for so long. The place is
emptier than it was. There is not the same eager crowd of
country delegates pressing up and down the corridors and
collecting literature from the stalls that I used to see in the
old days when the serious little workman from the Viborg
side stood guard over Trotsky's door, and from the alcove
with its window looking down into the great hall, the endless
noise of debate rose from the Petrograd Soviet that met
below.
Litvinov invited me to have dinner with the Petrograd
Commissars, which I was very glad to do, partly because I
was hungry and partly because I thought it would be better
to meet Zinoviev thus than in any other manner,
remembering how sourly he had looked upon me earlier
in the revolution. Zinoviev is a Jew, with a lot of hair, a
round smooth face, and a very abrupt manner. He was
against the November Revolution, but when it had been
accomplished returned to his old allegiance to Lenin and,
becoming President of the Northern Commune, remained in
Petrograd when the Government moved to Moscow. He is
neither an original thinker nor a good orator except in
debate, in answering opposition, which he does with extreme
skill. His nerve was badly shaken by the murders of his
friends Volodarsky and Uritzky last year, and he is said to
have lost his head after the attack on Lenin, to whom he is
extremely devoted. I have heard many Communists attribute
to this fact the excesses which followed that event in
Petrograd. I have never noticed anything that would make
me consider him pro-German, though of course he is
pro-Marx. He has, however, a decided prejudice against the
English. He was among the Communists who put
difficulties in my way as a "bourgeois journalist" in the
earlier days of the revolution, and I had heard that he had
expressed suspicion and disapproval of Radek's intimacy
with me.
I was amused to see his face when he came in and saw me
sitting at the table. Litvinov introduced me to him, very
tactfully telling him of Lockhart's attack upon me,
whereupon he became quite decently friendly, and said that
if I could stay a few days in Petrograd on my way back from
Moscow he would see that I had access to the historical
material I wanted, about the doings of the Petrograd Soviet
during the time I had been away. I told him I was surprised
to find him here and not at Kronstadt, and asked about the
mutiny and the treachery of the Semenovsky regiment.
There was a shout of laughter, and Pozern explained that
there was no Semenovsky regiment in existence, and that the
manufacturers of the story, every word of which was a lie,
had no doubt tried to give realism to it by putting in the
name of the regiment which had taken a chief part in putting
down the Moscow insurrection of fourteen years ago.
Pozern, a thin, bearded man, with glasses, was sitting at the
other end of the table, as Military Commissar of the
Northern Commune.
Dinner in Smolni was the same informal affair that it
was in the old days, only with much less to eat. The
Commissars, men and women, came in from their work,
took their places, fed and went back to work again, Zinoviev
in particular staying only a few minutes. The meal was
extremely simple, soup with shreds of horseflesh in it, very
good indeed, followed by a little kasha together with small
slabs of some sort of white stuff of no particular consistency
or taste. Then tea and a lump of sugar. The conversation
was mostly about the chances of peace, and Litvinov's rather
pessimistic reports were heard with disappointment. Just as
I had finished, Vorovsky, Madame Vorovsky and little Nina,
together with the two Norwegians and the Swede, came in.
I learnt that about half the party were going on to Moscow
that night and, deciding to go with them, hurried off to the
hotel.