BACK IN PETROGRAD
The Expedition was to proceed to Petrograd the next day, but Louise
begged me to remain for the funeral. Sunday, October 23rd, several
friends rode with her to the Trade Union House where Reed’s body lay in
state. I accompanied Louise when the procession started for the Red
Square. There were speeches--much cold stereotyped declamation about the
value of Jack Reed to the Revolution and to the Communist Party. It all
sounded mechanical, far removed from the spirit of the dead man in the
fresh grave. One speaker only dwelt on the real Jack Reed--Alexandra
Kollontay. She had caught the artist’s soul, infinitely greater in its
depth and beauty than any dogma. She used the occasion to admonish her
comrades. “We call ourselves Communists,” she said, “but are we really
that? Do we not rather draw the life essence from those who come to us,
and when they are no longer of use, we let them fall by the wayside,
neglected and forgotten? Our Communism and our comradeship are dead
letters if we do not give out of ourselves to those who need us. Let us
beware of such Communism. It slays the best in our ranks. Jack Reed was
among the best.”
The sincere words of Kollontay displeased the high Party members.
Bukharin knitted his brows, Reinstein fidgeted about, others grumbled.
But I was glad of what Kollontay had said. Not only because what she
said expressed Jack Reed better than anything else said that day, but
also because it brought her nearer to me. In America we had repeatedly
tried to meet but never succeeded. When I reached Moscow, in March,
1920, Kollontay was ill. I saw her only for a little while before I
returned to Petrograd. We spoke of the things that were troubling me.
During the conversation Kollontay remarked: “Yes, we have many dull
sides in Russia.” “Dull,” I queried; “nothing more?” I was unpleasantly
affected by what seemed to me a rather superficial view. But I reassured
myself that Kollontay’s inadequate English caused her to characterize as
“dull” what to me was a complete collapse of all idealism.
Among other things Kollontay had then said was that I could find a
great field for work among the women as very little had been attempted
up to that time to enlighten and broaden them. We parted in a friendly
manner, but I did not sense in her the same feeling of warmth and depth
that I had found in Angelica Balabanova. Now at the open grave of Reed
her words brought her closer to me. She, too, felt deeply, I thought.
Louise Bryant had fallen in a dead faint and was lying face downward on
the damp earth. After considerable effort we got her to her feet.
Hysterical, she was taken in the waiting auto to her hotel and put to
bed. Outside, the sky was clothed in gray and was weeping upon the fresh
grave of Jack Reed. And all of Russia seemed a fresh grave.
While in Moscow we found the explanation of the sudden change of tone of
the Communist press toward Makhno. The Bolsheviki, hard pressed by
Wrangel, sought the aid of the Ukrainian _povstantsi_ army. A
politico-military agreement was about to be entered into between the
Soviet Government and Nestor Makhno. The latter was to coöperate fully
with the Red Army in the campaign against the counter-revolutionary
enemy. On their side, the Bolsheviki accepted the following conditions
of Makhno:
(1) The immediate liberation and termination of persecution of all
Makhnovtsi and Anarchists, excepting cases of armed rebellion
against the Soviet Government.
(2) Fullest liberty of speech, press and propaganda for Makhnovtsi
and Anarchists, without, however, the right of calling for armed
uprisings against the Soviet Government, and subject to military
censorship.
(3) Free participation in Soviet elections; the right of Makhnovtsi
and Anarchists to be candidates, and to hold the fifth
All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets.
The agreement also included the right of the Anarchists to call a
congress in Kharkov, and preparations were being made to hold it in the
month of October. Many Anarchists were getting ready to attend it and
were elated over the outlook. But my faith in the Bolsheviki had
received too many shocks. Not only did I believe that the Congress would
not take place, but I saw in it a Bolshevik ruse to gather all the
Anarchists in one place in order to destroy them. Yet the fact was that
several Anarchists, among them the well-known writer and lecturer Volin,
had already been released and were now free in Moscow.
* * * * *
We left for Petrograd to deliver to the Museum the carload of precious
material we had gathered in the South. More valuable still was the
experience the members of the Expedition had been enriched with through
personal contact with people of various shades of opinion, or of no
opinion, and the impressions of the social panorama as it was being
unrolled day by day. That was a treasure of far greater worth than any
paper documents. But better insight into the situation intensified my
inner struggle. I longed to close my eyes and ears--not to see the
accusing hand which pointed to the blind errors and conscious crimes
that were stifling the Revolution. I wanted not to hear the compelling
voice of facts, which no personal attachments could silence any longer.
I knew that the Revolution and the Bolsheviki, proclaimed as one and the
same, were opposites, antagonistic in aim and purpose. The Revolution
had its roots deep down in the life of the people. The Communist State
was based on a scheme forcibly applied by a political party. In the
contest the Revolution was being slain, but the slayer also was gasping
for breath. I had known in America that the Interventionists, the
blockade and the conspiracy of the Imperialists were wrecking the
Revolution. But what I had not known then was the part the Bolsheviki
were playing in the process. Now I realized that they were the
grave-diggers.
I was oppressively conscious of the great debt I owed to the workers of
Europe and America: I should tell them the truth about Russia. But how
could I speak out when the country was still besieged on several fronts?
It would mean working into the hands of Poland and Wrangel. For the
first time in my life I refrained from exposing grave social evils. I
felt as if I were betraying the trust of the masses, particularly of the
American workers, whose faith I dearly cherished.
Arrived in Petrograd, I went to live temporarily in the Hôtel
International. I intended to find a room somewhere else, determined to
accept no privileges at the hands of the Government. The International
was filled with foreign visitors. Many had no idea of why or wherefore
they had come. They had simply flocked to the land they believed to be
the paradise of the workers. I remember my experience with a certain I.
W. W. chap. He had brought to Russia a small supply of provisions,
needles, thread, and other similar necessities. He insisted that I let
him share with me. “But you will need every bit of it yourself,” I told
him. Of course, he knew there was great scarcity in Russia. But the
proletariat was in control and as a worker he would receive everything
he needed. Or he would “get a piece of land and build a homestead.” He
had been fifteen years in the Wobbly movement and he “didn’t mind
settling down.” What was there to say to such an innocent? I had not the
courage to disillusion him. I knew he would learn soon enough. It was
pathetic, though, to see such people flood starving Russia. Yet they
could not do her the harm the other kind was doing--creatures from the
four corners of the earth to whom the Revolution represented a gold
mine. There were many of them in the International. They all came with
legends of the wonderful growth of Communism in America, Ireland, China,
Palestine. Such stories were balm to the hungry souls of the men in
power. They welcomed them as an old maid welcomes the flattery of her
first suitor. They sent these impostors back home well provided
financially and equipped to sing the praises of the Workers’ and
Peasants’ Republic. It was both tragic and comic to observe the breed
all inflated with “important conspiratory missions.”
I received many visitors in my room, among them my little neighbour from
the Astoria with her two children, a Communist from the French Section,
and several of the foreigners. My neighbour looked sick and worn since I
had seen her last in June, 1920. “Are you ill?” I inquired on one
occasion. “Not exactly,” she said; “I am hungry most of the time and
exhausted. The summer has been hard: as inspectress of children’s homes
I have to do much walking. I return home completely exhausted. My
nine-year-old girl goes to a children’s colony, but I would not risk
sending my baby boy there because of his experience last year, when he
was so neglected that he nearly died. I had to keep him in the city all
summer, which made it doubly hard for me. Still, it would not have been
so bad had it not been for the _subotniki_ and _voskresniki_ (Communist
Saturday and Sunday voluntary work-days). They drain my energies
completely. You know how they began--like a picnic, with trumpets and
singing, marching and festivities. We all felt inspired, especially when
we saw our leading comrades take pick and shovel and pitch in. But that
is all a matter of the past. The _subotniki_ have become gray and
spiritless, beneath an obligation imposed without regard to
inclination, physical fitness, or the amount of other work one has to
do. Nothing ever succeeds in our poor Russia. If I could only get out to
Sweden, Germany, anywhere, far away from it all.” Poor little woman, she
was not the only one who wanted to forsake the country. It was their
love for Russia and their bitter disappointment which made most people
anxious to run away.
Several other Communists I knew in Petrograd were even more embittered.
Whenever they called on me they would repeat their determination to get
out of the Party. They were suffocating--they said--in the atmosphere of
intrigue, blind hatred, and senseless persecution. But it requires
considerable will power to leave the Party which absolutely controls the
destiny of more than a hundred million people, and my Communist visitors
lacked the strength. But that did not lessen their misery, which
affected even their physical condition, although they received the best
rations and they had their meals at the exclusive Smolny dining room. I
remember my surprise on first finding that there were two separate
restaurants in Smolny, one where wholesome and sufficient food was
served to the important members of the Petrograd Soviet and of the
Third International, while the other was for the ordinary employees of
the Party. At one time there had even been three restaurants. Somehow
the Kronstadt sailors learned of it. They came down in a body and closed
two of the eating places. “We made the Revolution that all should share
alike,” they said. Only one restaurant functioned for a time but later
the second was opened. But even in the latter the meals were far
superior to the Sovietsky dining rooms for the “common people.”
Some of the Communists objected to the discrimination. They saw the
blunders, the intrigues, the destruction of life practised in the name
of Communism, but they had not the strength and courage to protest or to
disassociate themselves from the Party responsible for the injustice and
brutality. They would often unburden themselves to me of the matters
they dared not discuss in their own circles. Thus I came to know many
things about the inner workings of the Party and the Third International
that were carefully hidden from the outside world. Among them was the
story of the alleged Finnish White conspiracy, which resulted in the
killing in Petrograd of seven leading Finnish Communists. I had read
about it in the Soviet papers while I was in the Ukraina. I remember my
feeling of renewed impatience with myself that I should be critical of
the Bolshevik régime at a time when counter-revolutionary conspiracies
were still so active. But from my Communist visitors I learned that the
published report was false from beginning to end. It was no White
conspiracy but a fight between two groups of Bolsheviki: the moderate
Finnish Communists in control of the propaganda carried on from
Petrograd, and the Left Wing working in Finland. The Moderates were
Zinoviev adherents and had been put in charge of the work by him. The
Lefts had repeatedly complained to the Third International about the
conservatism and compromises of their comrades in Petrograd and the harm
they were doing to the movement in Finland. They asked that these men be
removed. They were ignored. On the 31st of August, 1920, the Lefts came
to Petrograd and proceeded to the headquarters of the Moderates. At the
session of the latter they demanded that the Executive Committee resign
and turn over all books and accounts to them. Their demand refused, the
young Finnish Communists opened fire, killing seven of their comrades.
The affair was heralded to the world as a counter-revolutionary
conspiracy of White Finns.
The third anniversary of the October Revolution was celebrated November
7th (October 25th old style), on the Uritsky Square. I had seen so many
official demonstrations that they had lost interest for me. Still I went
to the Square hoping that a new note might be sounded. It proved a
rehash of the thing I had heard over and over again. The pageant
especially was a demonstration of Communist poverty in ideas. Kerensky
and his cabinet, Tchernov and the Constituent Assembly, and the storming
of the Winter Palace again served as puppets to bring out in strong
relief the rôle of the Bolsheviki as “saviours of the Revolution.” It
was badly played and poorly staged, and fell flat. To me the celebration
was more like the funeral than the birth of the Revolution.
There was much excitement in Petrograd all through the month of
November. Numerous rumours were afloat about strikes, arrests, and
clashes between workers and soldiery. It was difficult to get at the
facts. But the extraordinary session called by the Party in the First
House of the Soviet indicated a serious situation. In the early part of
the afternoon the whole square in front of the Astoria was lined with
autos of the influential Communists who had been summoned to attend the
special conference. The following morning we learned that in obedience
to the Moscow decree the Petrograd session had decided to mobilize a
number of important Bolshevik workers for the factories and shops. Three
hundred Party members, some of them high government officials and others
holding responsible positions in the Petro-Soviet, were immediately
ordered to work, to prove to the proletariat that Russia was indeed a
Workers’ Government. The plan was expected to allay the growing
discontent of the proletarians and to counteract the influence of the
other political parties among them. Zorin was one of the three hundred.
However, the toilers would not be deceived by this move. They knew that
most of the mobilized men continued to live in the Astoria and came to
work in their autos. They saw them warmly dressed and well shod, while
they themselves were almost naked and living in squalid quarters without
light or heat. The workers resented the pretense. The matter became a
subject of discussion in the shops, and many unpleasant scenes followed.
One woman, a prominent Communist, was so tormented in the factory that
she went into hysterics and had to be taken away. Some of the mobilized
Bolsheviki, among them Zorin and others, were sincere enough, but they
had grown away from the toilers and could not stand the hardships of
factory life. After a few weeks Zorin collapsed and had to be removed to
a place of rest. Though he was generally liked, his collapse was
interpreted by the workers as a ruse to get away from the misery of the
proletarian’s existence. The breach between the masses and the new
Bolshevik bureaucracy had grown too wide. It could not be bridged.