FRIENDS OF RUSSIAN FREEDOM
If spiritual force implies the power to lift the individual out of the
contemplation of his own interests into something great and of ultimate
value to the men and women of this and the generations to come, and if,
so lifted, sacrifices are freely offered on the altar of the cause, it
may truly be said that the Russian Revolution is a spiritual force on the
East Side of New York.
People who all through the day are immersed in mundane affairs, the
earning of money to provide food and shelter, are transfigured at its
appeal. Back of the Russian Jew’s ardor for the liberation of a people
from the absolutism that provoked terrorism lies also the memory of
pogroms and massacres.
Though I had agonized with my neighbors over the tales that crossed
the water and the pitiful human drift that came to our shores, I did
not know how far I was from realizing the depths of horror until I saw
at Ellis Island little children with saber-cuts on their heads and
bodies, mutilated and orphaned at the Kishineff massacre. Rescued by
compassionate people, they had been sent here to be taken into American
homes.
[Illustration]
The procession of mourners marching with black-draped flags after
the news of the Bialystok massacre, the mass-meetings called to give
expression to sorrow at the failure of Father Gapon’s attempt to obtain
a hearing for the workingmen on that “Bloody Sunday”[10] when, it will
be remembered, the priest led hosts of men, women, and children carrying
icons and the Emperor’s picture to his palace, only to be fired upon by
his order, are some of the events that keep the Russian revolutionary
movement a stirring propaganda in our quarter of New York, at least.
Our contact with the members of the Russian revolutionary committee in
New York is close enough to enable us to be of occasional service to
them, and some report of our trustworthiness must have penetrated into
the prisons, as the letters we receive and the exiles who come to us
indicate.
A volume might be written of these visitors. The share they have taken
in the revolutionary movement is known, and their coming is often
merely an assurance that hope still lives. The young women, intrepid
figures, are significant not only of the long-continued struggle for
political deliverance, but of the historical progress of womenkind toward
intellectual and social freedom.
When Dr. W⸺ called upon me he was on his way to Sakhalin to join his wife
after nearly twenty years’ separation. For participation in an act of
violence against an official notorious for his brutality and disregard
even of Russian justice she had been sentenced to death, but the sentence
had been commuted to imprisonment in the Schlüsselburg fortress, whither
she was conducted in heavy chains, and where she remained thirteen years.
Later she was rearrested and sentenced to exile for life. She had been
for five years in the frozen Siberian village of Sakhalin, when, in 1898,
her husband, having seen their only son established in life and settled
his own affairs, obtained permission from the government to join his wife
in her exile.
In imagination I followed this cultured, impressive-looking man on his
long journey with a hope that was almost a prayer that the reunited
husband and wife would find recompense in their comradeship for all that
had been given up and that the woman’s fine spirit would make up for
whatever she might have lost through deprivation of stimulating contact
with her own circle in the world.
My interest caused me to follow their subsequent history. A few years
after Dr. W⸺ had joined his wife they were permitted to remove to
Vladivostok. In 1906, after the October manifesto, there was a military
revolutionary movement in Vladivostok. The governor gave the order to
fire and Madame W⸺, who, with her husband, was watching the crowd, was
killed by a stray bullet. Her son is now a lawyer in Petrograd. Although
separated from his mother nearly all his life he shows his devotion to
her memory and his sympathy with the cause by defending the “politicals”
who come to him.
* * * * *
The settlement from time to time affords occasions for conference on
Russian affairs between influential Americans and visiting Russians who
entertain hopes of reform by other than active revolutionary methods
and it has also given a hearing and found sympathetic friends for other
unhappy subjects of the Czar.
Echoes came to us of the persecution of the Doukhobors, a Russian
religious communistic sect, whose creed bears resemblance to that of
the Friends. Like the active revolutionists, these people had suffered
flogging, imprisonment, and exile, but in their case for espousing the
doctrine of non-resistance.
In 1897, upon their refusal to take up arms, persecution again became
active. The Russian press was forbidden to allude to the subject, but a
petition was said to have been thrown into the carriage of the Empress
when she was traveling in the Caucasus, where the Doukhobors had been
banished, and her interest was aroused. By 1900 Tolstoi had succeeded in
fixing attention upon their plight, and arrangements were finally made,
chiefly through the efforts of Friends in England and America and the
devotion of Aylmer Maude, for their settlement in Canada.
In order to raise funds for the emigration of these peasants to Canada,
Tolstoi was persuaded to depart from his established principle and
accept copyright for “Resurrection,” but the Doukhobors refused to
benefit by the sale of a book which they did not consider “good.”
During the first years of their life in Manitoba things did not go well
with them, and the House on Henry Street became the headquarters for some
of their friends as they came and went from England. A young man who,
under the influence of Tolstoi, had given up his commission in the army
spent a winter in Canada helping them to lay out their farm lands.
When he visited us he paid full tribute to the sincerity of their
religious convictions, but somewhat ruefully lamented the fanatical
extremes to which they carried them. The Doukhobors, who believed that
all work should be shared, voted against one person milking their single
cow. “But the cow,” said the young ex-captain, “was not a communist, and
went dry.”
[Illustration: _Fraternal Greetings P Kropotkin_]
My association with the fortunes of the Doukhobors ended with a slight
incident some time later. A peasant, unable to speak any language or
dialect that we could command in the house or neighborhood, presented a
card at our door on which were written these three words, “Kropotkin,
Crosby, Wald.” When an interpreter was secured from Ellis Island we
learned that, hearing of the pilgrimage of the Doukhobors to Canada, he
had decided to follow them, and for clews had only the remote connection
of Kropotkin’s sympathy with Russian peasants, Ernest Crosby’s devotion
to Tolstoi, and some rumor of his and my interest in these people. That
he should have succeeded in finding me seemed quite remarkable. He was
sent to Canada, and subsequent letters from him gave evidence of his
contentment with the odd sect to which he had been attracted.
After rather serious conflict between their religious practices and the
Canadian regulations, the Doukhobors are reported to have settled their
differences and to have established flourishing communistic colonies
where thousands of acres have been brought under cultivation.
* * * * *
The Friends of Russian Freedom, a national association with headquarters
in New York, is composed of well-known American sympathizers, and, like
the society of the same name in England, recognizes the spirit that
animates Russians engaged in the struggle for political freedom, and is
watchful to show sympathy and give aid.
An occasion for this arose about eight years ago, when the Russian
Government demanded the extradition of one Jan Pouren as a common
criminal. The Commissioner before whom the case was brought acceded
to Russia’s demands and Pouren was held in the Tombs prison to await
extradition. Then this insignificant Lettish peasant became a center of
protest. Pouren, it was known, had been involved in the Baltic uprisings,
and acquiescence in Russia’s demands for his extradition would imperil
thousands who, like him, had sought a refuge here, and would take heart
out of the people who still clung to the party of protest throughout
Russia. A great mass-meeting held in Cooper Union bore testimony to
the tenacity with which high-minded Americans clung to the cherished
traditions of their country. Able counsel generously offered their
services, and it was hoped that this and other expressions of public
protest would induce the Secretary of State to order the case reopened.
My own participation came about because of a request from the members
of the Russian Revolutionary Committee in New York that I present to
President Roosevelt personally the arguments for the reopening of the
case. An hour preceding the weekly Cabinet meeting was appointed for my
visit. I took to the White House an extraordinary letter sent by Lettish
peasants, now hard-working and law-abiding residents of Massachusetts
and New Hampshire. It read: “We hear Jan Pouren is in prison, that he
is called a criminal. We called him ‘brother’ and ‘comrade.’ Do not let
him fall into the hands of the bloodthirsty vampire.” To this letter
were appended the signatures and addresses of men who had been in the
struggle in Russia and who, by identifying themselves with Pouren,
placed themselves in equal jeopardy should the case go against him. They
offered to give sworn affidavits, or to come in person to testify for
the accused. With the letter had come a considerable sum of money which
the signers had collected from their scanty wages for Pouren’s defense.
I also had with me a translation of the report to the second Duma on the
Baltic uprisings wherein this testimony, in reference to the attempt
of the Government to locate those involved in the disturbances, was
recorded: “They beat the eight-year-old Anna Pouren, demanding of her
that she should tell the whereabouts of her father.”
The President and the Secretaries concerned discussed the matter, and I
left with the assurance that the new evidence offered would justify the
reopening of the case. At the second hearing the Commissioner’s decision
was reversed and Russia’s demands refused, on the ground that the alleged
offenses were shown to be political and “not in any one instance for
personal grievance or for personal gain.”[11]
* * * * *
George Kennan, who first focused the attention of Americans upon the
political exiles through his dramatic portrayal of their condition in
the Siberian prisons, is still the eager champion of their cause. Prince
Kropotkin, who thrilled the readers of the _Atlantic Monthly_ with his
“Autobiography of a Revolutionist”;[12] Tschaikowsky, Gershuni, Marie
Sukloff[13]—a long procession of saints and martyrs, sympathizers, and
supporters—have crossed the threshold of the House on Henry Street and
stirred deep feeling there. Katharine Breshkovsky (Babuschka, little
grandmother)[14], most beloved of all who have suffered for the great
cause, is to many a symbol of the Russian revolution.
Who of those that sat around the fire with her in the sitting-room of
the Henry Street house can ever forget the experience? We knew vaguely
the story of the young noblewoman’s attempt to teach the newly freed
serfs on her father’s estate in the early sixties; how her religious
zeal to give all that she had to the poor was regarded as dangerous by
the Czar’s government, and how one suppression and persecution after
another finally drove her into the circle of active revolutionists. Her
long incarceration in the Russian prison and final sentence to the Kara
mines and hard labor was known to us, and we identified her as the woman
whose exalted spirit had stirred Mr. Kennan when he met her in the little
Buriat hamlet on the frontier of China so many years ago.
And then, after two decades of prison and Siberian exile, she sat with
us and thrilled us with glimpses of the courage of those who answered
the call. Lightly touching on her own share in the tragic drama, she
carried us with her on the long road to Siberia among the politicals
and the convicts who were their companions, through the perils of an
almost successful escape with three students to the Pacific, a thousand
miles away. She told of her recapture and return to hard labor in the
Kara mines; of the unspeakable outrages, and the heroic measures her
companions there took to draw attention to the prisoners’ plight, and
how, despite these things, she looked back upon that time as wonderful
because of the beautiful and valiant souls who were her fellow-prisoners
and companions, young women who had given up more than life itself for
the great cause of liberty.
Her visit to America in 1905 was made at a time when the long-cherished
hopes of the revolutionists had some promise of realization. It was
deemed necessary to gain the utmost sympathy and support from the
comrades here, and she did indeed reawaken in the hearts of our neighbors
their most passionate desire for the political emancipation of a country
so well beloved from a government so well hated.
I accompanied Madame Breshkovsky to a reception given in her honor by
her fellow-countrymen, and her approach was the signal for a great
demonstration. They lifted her from the floor and carried her, high above
the heads of the people, to her chair. They sang “The Marseillaise,” and
the men wept with the women. Love and deference equally were accorded
to her noble character and fine perceptions. In addition to her clear
and far-sighted vision, her gift of quick and accurate decision and her
extraordinary ability as an organizer gave her, I was told, remarkable
authority in the councils of her party.
When I last saw her, at the close of her stay in this country, she
implored me never to forget Russia and the struggle there, and said, as
we separated after a lingering embrace: “Should you ever grow cold, bring
before your mind the procession of men and women who for years have gone
in the early dawn of their lives to execution, and gladly, that others
might be free.”
Upon returning to Russia she was arrested, and after almost three years’
imprisonment in the Fortress of Peter and Paul, “that huge stone coffin,”
was sent to Siberia “_na poselenie_,” as a forced colonist. The first
letters that came to her friends from Siberia told of the journey to
the place of her exile in the Trans-Baikal, two or three hundred miles
northeast of Irkutsk. They traveled by train, on foot, in primitive
carts, or “crowded like herrings in a barrel” in boats that floated with
the current, having no other means of propulsion, and, finally, after
nearly three months spent on the way, reached the little island town of
Kirensk, surrounded by two rivers, “the immense and cold Lena and the
less majestic Kyrenga.”
A letter from a fellow-exile, written in August, 1910, tells of her
passing through his village in a company of two hundred and fifty
political exiles and criminals, surrounded by a numerous guard. “Among
the crowd in gray coats, under gray skies and rain, her imposing
figure struck everyone.” He notes how her first thought, after days of
travel through the pouring rain in a miserable cart, and nights spent
in barracks or around a bonfire in the open air, was for others, “our
unfortunate comrades.” “Their sufferings,” he adds, “do a terrible sore
at her heart.... She formed the center of the party and the object of
general attention, not only of her political comrades, but also of the
criminals and the soldiers of the convoy. When I had traveled under
escort to our exile some months before everywhere we heard ‘Babuschka is
coming. God grant us to see her!’ The prisoners and the exiles in Siberia
waited with reverence to see the miracle woman. She kissed us all and
cheered us all.”
Her attempted escape from Kirensk, recapture, and sentence to the Irkutsk
prison in the winter of 1913 are known to all the world. Her letters to
American friends from her Siberian exile revealed the heroic soul. Her
physical sufferings were only incidentally alluded to, as in one letter
where, in the quaint English acquired in America and by study during her
last imprisonment, she said: “My gait is not yet sure enough, and it will
take some time before my forces and my celerity rejoin me to the point as
to let me exercise my feet without the aid of anyone.” Nevertheless, she
continues quite undaunted, “I hope to restore my health and to live till
the day I see you again.”
[Illustration: “BABUSCHKA, LITTLE GRANDMOTHER”]
The sufferings and deprivations of the young political exiles caused her
the greatest sorrow. It was, indeed, the only suffering she acknowledged,
although she deplored that reasonable conversation was impossible, with
the spies always within sight and hearing, and expressed her “disgust”
that they accompanied her whenever she went out.
In Kirensk there are over a thousand exiles forced to live on their
earnings and the small stipend received from the government. There is
little work to be had, and that little is rendered more uncertain by the
fact that the police shift the exiles about, seldom allowing them to
remain in one place for more than six months. Most of them are thus kept
in a state of semi-starvation. The magazines, books, and picture post
cards which Madame Breshkovsky received were used by her to extraordinary
advantage. Of some periodicals that I had caused to be sent her she
wrote: “They make a great parade in Siberia, going as far as Irkutsk
and Yakutsk, and some of them find resting-place in the libraries and
museums.” She taught English to the young “politicals” and reading
and writing to the illiterate native Siberians. “You understand my
situation,” she wrote: “an old mother who would serve every one of them.
I aid, I grumble, I sustain, I hear confessions like a priest, I give
counsel and admonition, but this is a drop in the ocean of misery.” And
of herself again: “How happy I am; persecuted, banished, and yet beloved.”
From the letters that have come to America and are shared by the circle
of her friends here I select one, written in answer to a request that she
send a message of her philosophy to the students of a women’s college who
had asked me to tell the story of the Russian revolution as personified
in her:
“October 20, 1913, Kirensk.
“Very dear and well-beloved Lillian:—
“Your letter, as well as the postal cards which you were good
enough to send me, were received by me several days ago, and
perhaps it is with the last mail that I send you this reply.
Snow already covers the mountainous borders of the superb Lena,
and frost will soon fill the waters with masses of ice, which
will interrupt all communications for two or three weeks,
leaving us isolated on our little island, entirely engulfed by
cold, badly treated by the north wind. I hasten, therefore,
to thank you for your indefatigable attention towards the old
recluse who, habituated as she is to pass her days now and
again imprisoned or exiled, rejoices, nevertheless, to find
herself loved—to feel that the most noble hearts beat in unison
with hers.
“It is strange! Every time that I am asked to speak about
myself I am always confused and find nothing to say. It is
very likely that if I paid more attention to the exterior
circumstances of my life there would be enough to talk about
that would fill more than a book. But ever since my childhood
I have had the habit of creating a spiritual life, an interior
world, which responded better to my spiritual taste. This
imaginary world has had the upper hand over the real world in
its details, over all that is transient.
“The aim of our existence, the perfecting of human nature,
was always present to my vision, in my mind. The route, the
direction that we ought to take in order to approach our ideal,
was for me a problem, the solution of which absorbed the
efforts of my entire life. I was implacable for myself, for
my weaknesses, knowing that to serve a divine cause we must
sincerely love the object of our devotion, that is to say, in
this case, humanity.
“These meditations, and a vigorous imagination, which always
carried me far beyond the present, permitting me to inhabit the
most longed-for regions, combined to attract very little of my
attention to daily circumstances.
“Without doubt, I have had suffering in my life, as I have
had moments of joy, of happiness even. It is also true that
the struggle with my failings, with the habits engrafted by
a worldly education, have cost me more or less dearly. The
misery of those near to me tore my heart to the extreme. In a
word, life has passed in the same way as a bark thrown upon
the mercy of a sea often stormy. But as the ideal was always
there, present in my heart and in my mind, it guided me in my
course, it absorbed me to such a degree that I did not feel in
all their integrity the influences of passing events. _The duty
to serve the divine cause of humanity in its entirety, that of
my people in particular, was the law of my life_,—the supreme
law, whose voice stilled my passions, my desires, in short, my
weaknesses....
“Since I live in my thoughts more than by emotion, it is my
thoughts that I have to confess more than the facts of my life.
These facts, to tell the truth, are sufficiently confused in
my memory, and often I would not be able to relate them in
all their details. Also, in conversing with those who care to
listen to me, I feel that I am monotonous, for it is always my
ideas and my abstract observations that I want to communicate
to my listeners. I have studied a great deal in order to
understand even ever so little of the origin of the human soul,
in order to understand more or less its complexity of to-day.
There lies my only strength, so to speak, and I continue my
study, knowing how complex my object of study is, and what an
innumerable quantity of different combinations, of types, of
low types, have been formed during the long history of the
laboratory where is prepared the supreme fusion called the
human soul.
“The esteem for the individual of the human species, and the
adoration of the intellectual treasure of this individual,
ought to form the center of all religion, of all knowledge,
of all ideal. _It is only in venerating the human being as
the most beautiful creation of the world, it is only in
understanding the beauty and the indestructible grandeur of
an intelligence illuminated by love and knowledge, that the
education of the young generations will bring the desired
fruits...._
“Lillian, my friend, I hope to be understood by you ... I
embrace you. I kiss your two hands and thank you for your noble
and dear existence. To your entire settlement I send greetings.
“Your
“Katharine Breshkovsky.”
Madame Breshkovsky’s friends are to be found in every civilized nation,
and her influence, from an exile’s hut in an isolated village in the
Arctic Circle, has radiated to remote quarters of the globe. From her
prison at Irkutsk this woman, nearing her seventieth birthday, sends
messages of hope and cheer, proclaiming her unquenchable faith that the
cause is just, and therefore must prevail.
* * * * *
I would not have our profound interest in the Russian revolution entirely
explained by the fellowship we have had with those who have participated
in it, by the literature which has stirred hearts and minds everywhere,
or by our actual experience with innocent victims of outrages. The
continuance of a policy of suppression of freedom infiltrates the social
order everywhere, destroys the germination of new forms of social life,
and he who has not sympathy with the throbbing of the human heart, and
who does not revolt against injustice anywhere in the world, who does not
see in the gigantic struggle in Russia a world movement for freedom and
progress that is our struggle too, will not comprehend the significance
of the sympathy of the many Americans who are friends of Russian freedom.