Felt ill. Symptoms of abdominal typhus. Panic on the part of my friends.
They say they do not want to lay my body under the Kremlin wall. If they
do, I have told them I don’t mind speeches, but I would like a prayer.
The answer to that was: “Are you really _croyante_?”
“Well,” I said, “there are two children praying every night that I may
return safe and soon, and the thought of that gives me a certain
security.”
“What, you teach your children to pray?”
“But surely they must have something to guide them as they start life?”
“You should teach them reality, and not fantasy.”
“It is not fantasy to believe in a Divine power.”
“You should believe only in your own power.”
That is a conversation I have had as a result of my slight
indisposition. It was a conversation that confirms the general idea I
have met in others since I have been here. I know these men are
idealists and selfless. I did not know these qualities could go hand in
hand with atheism.
On this point, Litvinoff corrected me. He did not even want to be
regarded as an idealist. That was too unpractical. “We are idealistic
materialists,” he said. To prove their tolerance of religious thought,
the churches are all open. But to enter the sacred gateway which leads
to the Red Square it was necessary, in pre-Revolution days, for men to
pass uncovered. A tablet has now been inserted in the wall engraved with
the inscription, “Religion is the opiate of the people.” Hardly ever
have I passed that by without having it pointed out to me with great
pride. I never quite understood the spirit of it.
As for the people, they seem to disregard it, to judge by the many who
cross themselves as they pass. The shrine seems to be always full of
devotees, who pause to pray. The religious feeling of the people will
not easily be obliterated and, after all, they need all the comfort and
hope they can get, even if the intellectuals do not.
My stay in Russia is nearing its end. Already I see my departure in the
near distance. People at home will think I am a Bolshevik, on account of
my associations, but I am much too humble to pretend that I understand
anything about it.
The more I hear, the clearer it seems to me that economics are the basis
of all these arguments, and when it is a question of political economy
something happens to my mind, just as it used to when I was a child and
had to learn arithmetic. A Bolshevik who can be defeated by argument is
not worthy of the name. Therefore I am not a Bolshevik.
But I have tried to understand the spirit of Communism and it interests
me overwhelmingly. There are little incidents I like to recall that in
no way lessen my love of the people. For example, when the weather began
to get cold, before Borodin went away, being unable to explain in
Russian what I wanted, I went myself to the back garden to fetch an
armload of logs for my fire.
I had to make a long journey through the kitchen, down the corridor and
finally through the drawing-room. I have never minded carrying my own
wood, but I did think that one of the two men--Borodin who was
telephoning, or Boris, who was idling in a Louis XVI chair as I passed
through the drawing-room, might have opened the doors for me.
Because they did not I most unforgivably lost my temper, and said I was
glad that I was an English woman and not a Russian man. The effect of my
attack was different on each of them.
Boris said, “But it is quite right you should carry your own wood.
Communism means that each should help himself.”
I replied that that was nothing new, that self-help was the oldest
deep-rooted feeling in the world, and that if Communism wanted to be
original, it must teach the doctrine of helping one another.
Borodin followed me to my room in a state of apology and distress. He
brought me two apples and a cigarette, and told me that if I peeled the
birch bark off the logs, it made an excellent substitute for kindling.
With his advice he did much to help me light my fire. I have never quite
made out in my own mind if they were typically Russian or typically
Communist. I am still wondering.
I was much laughed at once because I made Vanderlip in the street
shoulder a woman’s burden and carry it for her to her house. She was a
frail well-dressed woman, obviously exhausted by a long walk over
cobblestones, and was utterly incompetent to carry the bundle
containing her rations. I would have taken it for her myself if I had
been alone, but as Vanderlip was champion-in-chief of the frail and the
well-dressed, I thought he might as well do it. Litvinoff was amused
when he heard about it, and said that one might really find a good deal
of work to do in Moscow on those lines.
Vanderlip has told me with great concern that a weak little bourgeoise
friend of his, once rich, but now a stenographer, has received a paper
ordering her to enlist her services among those who are to shovel the
street clear of snow in front of their doors.
“Terrible,” he said.
“Why, terrible?” I asked.
“Terrible that a woman, well-bred and unused to manual labour, should be
called upon to shovel snow.”
“But,” I argued, “she had better food and care when young than the
working classes, and ought, therefore, to be physically stronger and
more able to do this work than many another.” (I thought of some of my
friends in England who made most efficient railway porters during the
strike a year ago.)
I said that I should take a pride if I were a Russian bourgeoise in
showing people here that I could do as good a day’s work as anyone
else, and that I was not just useless and helpless as they imagined.
Vanderlip disagreed. He said (and I wonder if it is the American point
of view) that women ought not to work at all, they ought to be worked
for.
It was quite useless to talk to him about co-operation or the economic
independence of women. Besides, it was not about women, it was about
Communism that I wanted to talk.
How long and how rambling this is as the result of no occupation and an
enforced stay within doors! It is useless to write letters home, and
this is a sort of unburdening. I often wonder about my family--whether
they are anxious about me (knowing nothing of the peaceful truth), or
whether they are too disapproving to be anxious.
I love the bedrock of things here, and the vital energy. If I had no
children, I should remain and work. There may be no food for the body,
but there is plenty of food for the soul, and I would rather live in
discomfort in an atmosphere of gigantic effort, than in luxury among the
purposeless. I find I no longer dream of home, and have grown used to
conditions which at first seemed hard. I am thankful for the peace which
I once mistook for dullness, and appreciate the absence of all the
pretty tyrannies of civilised life. My mode of living suits me very
well. I am glad not to have to take any part in the management of a
house. I prefer bad food than to be consulted about it. What the
housemaid breaks is not mine, nor any concern of mine. There are no
boredoms such as gas bills, taxes, rent and rates, nor Income Tax
returns. I never have to sign a cheque, nor to go out with a purse. The
obliteration of all social life is a boon. There are no invitations by
telephone to accept, refuse, or make decisions about. There is no
perplexity about the choice of apparel, nor letters by post that have to
be answered. There is leisure to read, leisure to think, leisure to
observe. The big ideas, wide horizons and destruction of all the
conventions have taken hold of me. Of course I realise that, as a guest
of the Government, I am judging things from a personal point of view,
and not the point of view of the Russian people. (Few of us are big
enough to be purely impersonal.) I like living in this way. It may seem
a strange taste to those people who have the sense of possession, the
collectors’ instinct, or the love of home. I have none of these; so long
as I have a place to work in, and plenty of work to do, and leisure in
which to think about it, I ask little more.
My ear has accustomed itself to the language of Communism, I have
forgotten the English of my own world. I do not mean that I am a
Communist, nor that I think it is a practical theory, perhaps it is not,
but it seems to me, nevertheless, that the Russian people get gratis a
good many privileges, such as education, lodging, food, railways,
theatres, even postage, and a standard wage thrown in. If the absence of
prosperity is marked, the absence of poverty is remarkable. The people’s
sufferings are chiefly caused by lack of food, fuel and clothing. This
is not the fault of the Government. The Soviet system does not do it to
spite them, or because it enjoys their discomfiture. Only peace with the
world can ameliorate their sufferings, and Russia is not at war with the
world, the world is at war with Russia. Why am I happy here, shut off
from all I belong to? What is there about this country that has always
made everyone fall under its spell? I have been wondering. My mind
conjures up English life and English conditions, and makes comparisons.
Why are these people, who have less education, so much more cultured
than we are? The galleries of London are empty. In the British Museum
one meets an occasional German student. Here the galleries and museums
are full of working people. London provides revues and plays of
humiliating mediocrity, which the educated classes enjoy and applaud.
Here the masses crowd to see Shakespeare. At Covent Garden it is the
gallery that cares for music, and the boxes are full of weary fashion,
which arrives late and talks all the time. Here the houses are
overcrowded with workers and peasants who listen to the most classical
operas. Have they only gone as someone might with a new sense of
possession to inspect a property they have suddenly inherited? Or have
they a true love of the beautiful and a real power of discrimination?
These are the questions I ask myself. Civilisation has put on so many
garments that one has trouble in getting down to reality. One needs to
throw off civilisation and to begin anew, and begin better, and all that
is required is just courage. What Lenin thinks about nations applies to
individuals. Before reconstruction can take place there must be a
revolution to obliterate everything in one that existed before. I am
appalled by the realisation of my upbringing and the futile view-point
instilled into me by an obsolete class tradition. Time is the most
valuable material in the world, and there at least we all start equally,
but I was taught to scatter mine thoughtlessly, as though it were
infinite. Now for the first time I feel morally and mentally free, and
yet they say there is no freedom here. If a paper pass or an
identification card hampers one’s freedom, then it is true. There may
be restrictions to the individual, and if I were a Russian subject I
might not be allowed to leave the country, but I seem to have been
obliged to leave England rather clandestinely.
Freedom is an illusion, there really is not any in the world except the
freedom one creates intellectually for oneself.
My work is ended, but I am loth to go. I love this place and all the
people in it. I love the people I have met, and the people who pass by
me in the street. I love the atmosphere laden with melancholy, with
sacrifice, with tragedy. I am inspired by this Nation, purified by Fire.
I admire the dignity of their suffering and the courage of their belief.
I should like to live among them for ever, or else work for them
outside, work and fight for the Peace that will heal their wounds.