Krassnochokoff, who is certainly a man of some ability, spoke of his
plans in a sincere and convincing manner, and I really think that at
that time he believed the scheme would be carried through just as he
outlined it to me. However, I must admit I was sceptical.
I had seen, drawn up in the station, the Bolshevik propaganda train, in
charge of Dvornik, who had been employed as an interpreter by the
American Railroad Corps until he was imprisoned by the Kolchak
Government for propagating Bolshevism. It did not augur well for a truly
democratic state. Subsequent events have shown that my estimate of the
situation was correct. The buffer state exists only in name. It is part
of Soviet Russia, administered by Moscow on the communist system. The
population is embittered, being half starved. All industry has died and
so have men and women at the hands of firing squads, because they
unwisely expressed their disapproval of commissar rule.
Krassnochokoff was in Moscow this summer. His efforts to persuade Lenine
and company to moderate their policy in the Far Eastern Republic met
with fierce disapproval, and for some weeks he walked on thin ice. The
butcher Dzherjinsky, of the extraordinary commission, was thirsting for
his blood, but he weathered the storm and eventually returned to his job
at Verkni-Udinsk.
We left that night for Irkutsk. I was most anxious to get there. I
wanted to see our prisoners and get into touch with uncamouflaged
Bolsheviks. I hoped to find the latter as Krassnochokoff had described
them. The atrocities committed by the whites in Siberia had alienated
all my sympathies for them. I was above all else anxious to see whether
the wild beasts I had known in 1917 and 1918 had become tame.
I was at this time predisposed in favor of opening up trade relations
with the Soviet power, feeling that this would do much toward solving
the Russian problem. These were my feelings and my hopes on the eve of
my entry into “Lenine’s Paradise” in April. I left that “Paradise” in
October determined to do everything in my power to dissuade the outside
world from having any dealings whatsoever with the Bolsheviki. They were
scoundrels in 1917—they are even greater scoundrels to-day.
We received a great welcome from Major Vining and his six officers and
seven men when we arrived in Irkutsk at 3 o’clock the following
afternoon. We found that they had with them a party of British civilians
who had been captured in Krasnoyarsk. These were evacuated by Carthew.
We found that the whole party had been through trying times. Some of
them had been dangerously ill with typhus, and all of them looked worn
and undernourished. They told us that the sight of the Union Jack flying
from our car as we rolled into the station was one which made them
thrill with pride. Months later, when in Moscow, I was suffering
severely from want of food and my position seemed desperate. I realized
just what the sight of that flag must have meant to them.
The day of our arrival in Irkutsk was a “prasnik” or church holiday, and
it was therefore impossible to call on the President of the
Revolutionary Committee until the morrow.
The town, even making allowance for the fact that it was a holiday,
looked dead. All the shops had been closed and their contents removed.
Many of the windows on the main street had been perforated by bullets,
and over everything there hung that air of gloom so indissolubly
associated in my mind with Bolshevism.
I had visited Irkutsk, several times during the Kolchak regime, when it
was a thriving trading centre, and now I found it hard to realize that
this red-beflagged, poster-besmirched conglomeration of buildings could
constitute the same town. The prosperous, well dressed, happy looking
townspeople of the past had been replaced by drab and dirty workpeople,
peasants and soldiers, all liberally bedecked with red stars. I
discovered later that all those who wore red stars were by no means
Bolsheviks; in fact, the great majority of them were “radishes,” or red
outside and white within, as the Russian phrase goes. With the Reds in
power it is advisable to present at least a red exterior.
Wherever one went on the main or side streets, one met lavish displays
of gaudy posters; some of an educational character, others blatantly
lewd. The majority had for their object the stirring up of class hatred.
_Hotels Taken by Bolsheviki._
We found that all the hotels had been taken over by the Bolsheviki for
the housing of Soviet officials and their families. The restaurants had
either been closed or converted into Soviet dining rooms for Soviet
employees, where meals of exceedingly poor quality and consisting mainly
of cabbage soup, without meat, and “kasha” (millet). These meals were
served at nominal prices on production of the inevitable card.
On the following day I called on Jansen, the President of the
Revolutionary Committee. He gave me a very cordial welcome and expressed
himself as most anxious to enter into trading relations with American
firms. He arranged a meeting with the heads of the various Government
departments. This meeting, which took place on the following day, was
the forerunner of a great many conferences which extended over a period
of nearly two months, and which brought me into close touch with the
leaders of the Soviet Government in the town, and afforded me an
excellent opportunity of studying their characters and their methods.
I found Jansen, at all times a reasonable, moderate and above all humane
man. He had a pretty good grasp of his duties and executed them with
efficiency and despatch. He was always ready to render me assistance,
and in all my personal relations with him I found him straightforward
and reliable.
Of the other leaders, Saxs, a nervous, highly strung little Jew, who had
spent many years in prison during the Czar’s regime for political
offenses, I found to be a very decent fellow. Despite the fact that his
mind has become politically unbalanced, he had remained human and there
is more than a little of the milk of human kindness in his make-up.
Waxhoff, who, despite his youth (he was about twenty-three), occupied a
position of importance as the head of a Government department, was the
source of unfailing interest to me. He was the son of a rich
manufacturer in South Russia and had commenced his career by organizing
strikes in his father’s factories. He was a youngster of natural
ability, but his head unfortunately was crammed full of half-digested
revolutionary theories. I found him even a lovable companion,
warm-hearted, honest to a degree and incapable of harming a fly. He
travelled to Moscow with me.
_Reduces the Town to Penury._
Taking then all in all, the men who held the reins in Irkutsk were
moderate men, but none the less in carrying out the orders of Moscow
they reduced that once prosperous and well-fed town to penury and
semistarvation within a few months.
The market was officially decreed closed, but the peasants still
continued to bring in foodstuffs until the “Chika” (the Extraordinary
Commission) commenced raiding it and arresting sellers and buyers,
confiscating their goods and imprisoning them. When I left Irkutsk only
a small number of peasants were bringing food into the town.
Siberia, even allowing for the land which has been allowed to go out of
cultivation in recent years, still produces, or did during the Kolchak
regime, enough to feed the whole of its population and still permit her
to export a considerable surplus to European Russia. Notwithstanding
this fact, which is incontrovertible, there is not a town of any size in
Soviet Siberia which is not suffering from a shortage of food. The
Entente blockade is certainly not responsible for this state of affairs:
it is the Communist system which is at fault.
I found in those Government departments which I visited a superabundance
of staff, occupied mostly in doing nothing. The people in these
departments had been forced to work for the Soviet, but they took good
care to do as little work as possible and that as badly as they dared.
Outside the spy service there is little or no real organization in
Bolshevik institutions.