ON TO MOSCOW
Before leaving Velikie Luki I wandered with my guard down a street of
the town and came upon a Soviet bookstore. Inside were thousands of
books and pamphlets, in what seemed to me all the languages of the
world. The store was full of men and women buying these books and
pamphlets. I learned that this store and many others like it had been
opened almost two years before, and that knowledge of history and social
conditions throughout the world was thus being brought to millions of
Russians formerly held in darkness.
Later in the afternoon of that day the Commissar informed me that I was
free to go on to Smolensk and that if I passed muster there I could go
anywhere I desired in Russia. I was given another guard, a big fellow
who had spent ten years in England and returned to Russia when the Czar
was overthrown. He so much resembled the Irish labor leader, Jim Larkin,
that I called him “Larkin” throughout the course of our journey
together.
He had an exclamation which he used frequently when I was too
pertinacious to suit him.
“God love a duck, what do you want now?” he would roar with a despairing
gesture, and the tone of his voice also was despairing. It may be that
he was justified in his complaint, for there was much that I wanted to
know and to see.
On the last day of our journey towards Moscow he turned to me and said,
“I haven’t prayed for ten years or more,—not since I was down and out in
Glasgow, Scotland, and wandered into a Salvation Army headquarters. Then
I did go down on my knees and pray for help, but I decided since that
praying wasn’t my job. But God love a duck, when I get you safely into
Moscow I’m going down on my knees again and thank God that this job is
over and ask Him to save me from any more Americans of your kind.”
But there was, after all, some excuse for my troubling him so often and
so much. “Larkin” slept on every possible—and impossible—occasion, and
the sound of his snores, with which I can think of nothing worthy of
comparison, kept me awake, so that in self-defence I used to rouse him
every time we reached a station to ask questions about where we were and
why we had stopped there and what the people were doing and why they
were doing it. When I had him sufficiently awake to begin to smoke I
could snatch a bit of sleep for myself, for he invariably sat up until
he had smoked eight or ten cigarettes, after which his snoring began
again and my rest ended.
“Larkin’s” real name was August Grafman, which sounded Teutonic. He was
a Russian Jew, however, and a good fellow. I hope to see him again
sometime, and I commend him to any other Americans who want to see for
themselves what is going on in Russia at the present time. He spoke
English readily and perfectly, and from him I obtained much information
I might otherwise have missed. There was the time when we waited for a
train at a small station in the course of our journey towards Smolensk.
All at once a commotion arose on the other side of the station. Hurrying
around, we saw a man running, pursued by three or four Red soldiers. Two
officers coming toward the station drew their sabres and held them
before the man, who stopped and his pursuers captured him. They brought
him back to the station and I observed that he was a Jew. I wondered if
his crime was that of his race, remembering stories of pogroms. The Jew
was brought into the station and seated on a bench. Immediately the
soldiers surrounded him, and one of them stood up in front of him and
made a long speech. At its conclusion he sat down, and another rose and
made an address. Finally a third vociferously questioned the man. At
last the Jew arose, the soldiers made way for him, and he left the
station. “Larkin” who had been too much interested in the proceedings to
talk to me, now satisfied my curiosity.
The Jew had been caught in the act of picking the pockets of a soldier.
Furthermore it was his third offence. The first man who spoke had tried
to impress the Jew with the enormity of the crime of robbing a man who
was on his way to defend his country. He had said, “Don’t you realize
that a man going out to fight carries nothing with him except what he
actually needs, whether it be money or anything else, and that it is
worse to rob a soldier on this account than an ordinary civilian, with a
home, and all his treasures about him?” The second man had talked of the
defence of the country; the soldiers were going to fight so that when
the fighting ended there would be enough for every one and no need for
stealing. The third had tried to obtain a promise that the man would not
again steal from soldiers. He had been successful, and, “now the Jew is
free,” said Larkin.
“But it was his third offense,” I said. “I should think they would
punish him severely.”
“Larkin” gave me a pitying glance. “You don’t understand the Russians,”
he said simply. “They are kind and in their own new born freedom they
want every one to be free.”
At last our train arrived and we got on. To Smolensk and then to Moscow,
I thought. But it was not so simple as that. Our train was going to
Moghilev direct, so we had to get off again at Polotsk at nine in the
evening, where we found that we were half an hour too late to catch the
train for Smolensk. “Larkin” hunted around for a sleeping place for us
when we learned that we would have to stay overnight in the town, and
finally won the favor of the Commissar, who took us to what he called
the “Trainmen’s Hotel,” a large building near the station. In the room
into which we were ushered there were about twenty beds, the linen on
which was far from clean. Two of the beds in one corner of the room were
assigned to us and we lay down fully dressed. After what seemed a few
minutes I was awakened by a vigorous kick, and found a huge Russian
standing over me, brandishing his arms and speaking harshly and
menacingly at me. I hurriedly shook “Larkin” out of his profound
slumber, and at the end of a brief but spirited discussion between the
two in Russian, he informed me that the man had been working all night
in the railroad shop and had come in to sleep. He resented finding his
bed occupied. I suspected “Larkin” of enjoying the joke on me, as I
clambered out and shivered in the cold, but his enjoyment was brief, for
he was almost immediately ordered out by another man who entered and
claimed his bed.
The two of us wandered out forlornly into the cold foggy morning and
went back to the station. The Commissar there made us comfortable in his
office until daylight, when we went down the track to a water tank and
had a “hobo wash” after which we ate our breakfast—one egg each, black
bread and tea, in the Soviet restaurant in the station.
We had been told that we could not get a train to Smolensk before four
o’clock in the afternoon, but at eleven the Commissar told us that a
trainload of soldiers going to the Denikin front would be passing
through at two in the afternoon and that it might be possible to arrange
for our transportation on this train, if we wished it. We did wish it
and at two o’clock we were in a box car full of soldiers en route to
Smolensk, which we would reach at ten that night.
The soldiers sang all evening—Russian soldiers always sing, no matter
how crowded, how hungry, or how weary—but one by one they dropped off to
sleep, huddled up in all sorts of positions. The train jolted along,
slowly, it seemed to me, and it was too dark to see anything through the
window. My guard went to sleep, and I remember thinking we must be near
Smolensk and that I would have to stay awake since he seemed to find his
responsibilities resting lightly. The stopping of the train roused me,
and thinking that we had arrived at Smolensk I shook “Larkin” who looked
at his watch and exclaimed, “Why it’s midnight. We must have passed
Smolensk.”
[Illustration: LENIN IN THE COURTYARD OF THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW, SUMMER OF
1919]
Surely enough, we had gone through Smolensk and were seventy five versts
on the other side of it, bound for the Denikin front. I had no
objections to going there eventually but I preferred to have permission
first, so we hastily bundled out of the train and went into the station.
“Larkin” approached the door of the Commissar’s office and tried to
brush past the Red Guard who sat there, and who objected to such an
unceremonious entrance. After an interminable discussion—perhaps five
minutes,—I said, “He wants to see your credentials. Why don’t you show
them to him? Do you want us both to be arrested?”
But the Red guard had lost patience by this time. A snap of his fingers
brought a policeman who arrested “Larkin” and before I had finished the
“I told you so,” I could not restrain, I found the heavy hand of the law
on my own shoulder. The two of us were marched down the street and
locked in a little dark room in what was apparently the town jail.
In the two hours of solitude that followed I shared all my dismal
forebodings with that unfortunate guard. We would be taken for spies and
as spies we would certainly be shot. I couldn’t be sorry that this
penalty would be inflicted upon anyone so stupid and obstinate and
generally asinine as he, but I at least wanted to get back to America
and tell people how stupid a big Russian could be. There were probably
some adjectives also, I am not sure that he listened. In any event I
could not see the signs of contrition that might at least have lightened
my apprehensions.
At the end of two hours two Red soldiers opened the door of our cell and
escorted us to the police station where we were taken at once before the
judge, a simple, but very determined looking peasant, who examined first
the Red Guard who had caused our arrest, the policeman who had arrested
us, and two soldiers who had witnessed the affair.
“Larkin” in the meantime very reluctantly interpreted whatever comments
and explanations I had to make. He became more and more stubborn and
taciturn. The Red Guard told his story, which was verified by the
policeman. The two soldiers further attested to the truth of the tale
and stated that we had been entirely at fault. Then the judge asked my
guard for an explanation, and with the air of one playing a forgotten
ace which would take trick and game, “Larkin” produced our credentials
and laid them triumphantly on the judge’s desk.
When he had read them the judge rose and made a statement which I
demanded my guard should translate.
“Oh he is just saying,” said “Larkin,” “to please tell the American that
we are sorry this thing happened. We are only working people and we must
be careful to guard our country. The Red Guard at the door was simply
obeying orders and doing his duty, and we want the American to
understand that no deliberate offence was intended. There are so many
people making war on us, both inside and outside, and we have to be
careful.”
When “Larkin” had translated my reply, which was to the effect that we
acknowledged our fault, and had only congratulations for the men who
understood their duty and had the courage to perform it, and that I
regretted having been the cause of so much trouble, the judge himself
led us to a first-class train coach in the yards, unlocked it, and told
us to enter and spend the rest of the night there.
“At eight o’clock in the morning this coach will be picked up by the
train to Smolensk. Now, go to sleep, you won’t have to be on the watch
this time,” he said with a suggestion of a smile.
Weary as I was I still remembered a few more things to say to “Larkin”
who was by this time somewhat subdued. It was not until I had threatened
to report him to the Moscow Government, and had again told him that it
was a brutal thing to take advantage of men who were doing their duty
under the most difficult circumstances conceivable, that my mind was
lightened sufficiently so that I could go to sleep.
Of one thing I had been convinced—the general efficiency of organization
which I had encountered again and again in Soviet Russia. The people
were universally kind, but with strangers they took no chances. Well, I
concluded, they could not have been blamed if they had kept us in jail
for a long while, until they had checked up my entire record in Russia,
at least. And I was grateful that my prison record amounted to two hours
only, thanks to the expedition with which they administer trial to
suspects in Red Russia.
Shut up in our coach we sped on to Smolensk the next day. Another
twenty-four hours in Smolensk, where I was given permission to proceed
to Moscow and again I boarded a train. I had been relayed from one army
post to another; from the company to the regiment, from the regiment to
the brigade, from the brigade to the division, from the division to the
army command, and from the army command to the high command. And after
eight days I was almost within reach of Moscow. On the morrow I would be
off for Moscow itself.
[Illustration: LENIN AT HIS DESK IN KREMLIN, 1919]
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