THE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC RESORTS TO DEPORTATION
The Tcheka had succeeded in terrorizing the whole people. The only
exceptions were the politicals, whose courage and devotion to their
ideals defied the Bolsheviki as it had the Romanovs. I knew many of
those brave spirits, and I saw in them the only hope to sustain one amid
the general wreckage. They were the living proof of the powerlessness of
terror against an Ideal.
Typical of this class was a certain Anarchist who had long been sought
for by the Tcheka as an important Makhnovetz. He was a member of the
military staff of the revolutionary _povstantsi_ of the Ukraina and the
close friend and counsellor of Makhno. He had already known him
intimately when they were together in _katorga_ in the days of the Tsar.
He had shared all the hardships and danger of the _povstantsi_ life and
participated in their campaigns against the enemies of the Revolution.
After the defeat of Wrangel and the last treachery of the Bolsheviki
toward Makhno, when the latter’s army had become scattered and many of
its members killed, this man succeeded in escaping the Bolshevik net. He
determined to come to Moscow, there to write a history of
Makhnovstchina. It was a perilous journey, made under most difficult
conditions, with death constantly treading his footsteps. Under an
assumed name he secured a tiny room in the environs of the capital. He
lived in most abject poverty, always in danger of his life, visiting his
wife in the city only under cover of darkness. Once in every twenty-four
hours he would come to the appointed place for a little respite and his
sole meal of the day, consisting of potatoes, herring, and tea. Every
moment he risked being recognized, for he was well known in Moscow, and
recognition meant summary execution. His wife also, if discovered, would
have met the same fate--the devoted woman who, though with child at the
time, had followed him to Moscow. After a desperate hunt for employment
she found a position in a _crèche_, but as pregnant women were not
accepted in such institutions, she had to disguise her condition. All
day long she had to be on her feet, attending to her duties, and living
in constant fear for the safety of her husband.
When the baby was born the situation became more aggravated. The woman
was harassed by her superiors because she had obtained the position
without their knowledge of her condition. Petty officialdom and hard
work exhausted her energies and the daily anxiety about the man she
loved nearly drove her frantic. Yet never a sign of all that troubled
her when the man would visit her.
Many evenings I spent with this couple. They were entirely cut off from
the outside world and former friends, all alone save for the fear of
discovery and death which was their constant companion. In the dreary,
damp room, the baby asleep, we passed many hours talking in subdued
voices about the Ukrainian peasantry and the Makhno movement. My friend
was familiar with every phase of it from personal experience, which he
was now incorporating into his book on Makhno. He was absorbed in that
work, which was for the first time to give to the world the truth about
Makhno and the _povstantsi_. Deeply concerned about his wife and child,
he was entirely oblivious to his own safety, though knowing that every
day the Tcheka net was drawn closer about him. With great difficulty he
was finally prevailed upon to leave his beloved Russia, as the only way
of saving his family. What a commentary on the Socialist Republic, whose
bravest and truest sons must keep in hiding or forsake their native
soil!
* * * * *
Life in Russia had become to me a constant torture; the need of breaking
my two years’ silence was imperative. During all the summer I was in the
throes of a bitter conflict between the necessity of leaving and my
inability to tear myself away from what had been an ideal to me. It was
like the tragic end of a great love to which one clings long after it is
no more.
In the midst of my struggle there happened an event which further served
to demonstrate the complete collapse of the Bolsheviki as
revolutionists. It was the announcement of the return to Russia of the
Tsarist General Slastchev, one of the most reactionary and brutal
militarists of the old régime. He had fought against the Revolution from
its very beginning and had led some of the Wrangel forces in the Crimea.
He was guilty of fiendish barbarities to war prisoners and infamous as a
maker of pogroms. Now Slastchev recanted and was returning to “his
Fatherland.” This arch counter-revolutionist and Jew-baiter, together
with several other Tsarist generals and White guardists, was received by
the Bolsheviki with military honours. No doubt it was just retribution
that the anti-Semite had to salute the Jew Trotsky, his military
superior. But to the Revolution and the Russian people the triumphal
return of the imperialists was an outrage.
The old general had changed his colours but not his nature. In his
letter to the officers and men of the Wrangel Army he delivered himself
of the following:
I, Slastchev Krimsky, command you to return to your Fatherland and
into the fold of the Red Army. Our country needs our defense
against her enemies. I command you to return.
As a reward for his newly fledged love of the Socialist Fatherland
Slastchev “Krimsky” was commissioned to quell the Karelian peasants who
demanded self-determination, and Slastchev had the opportunity of giving
full play to the autocratic powers he was vested with.
Military receptions and honours for the man who had been foremost in the
attempt to crush the Revolution, and imprisonment or death for the
lovers of liberty! At the same time the true sons of Russia, who had
defended the Revolution against every attack and had aided the
Bolsheviki to political power, were made homeless by deportation to
foreign lands. A more tragic débâcle history has never before witnessed.
The first to be deported by the “revolutionary” Government were ten
Anarchists, most of them known in the international revolutionary
movement as tried idealists and martyrs for their cause. Among them was
Volin, a highly cultured man, a gifted writer and lecturer, who had been
editor of various Anarchist publications in Europe and America. In
Russia, where he returned in 1917, he helped to organize the Ukrainian
Confederation of _Nabat_ and, was for a time lecturer for the Soviet
Department of Education in Kharkov. Volin had been a member of an
Anarchist partisan military unit that fought against Austro-German
occupation, and for a considerable time he also conducted educational
and cultural work in the Makhno Army. During the year 1921 he was
imprisoned by the Bolsheviki and deported after the hunger strike of the
Taganka Anarchists which lasted ten and a half days.
In the same group was G. Maximoff, an Anarchist of many years’
standing. Before the Revolution he had been active among the students of
the Petrograd University and also among the peasants. He participated in
all the revolutionary struggles beginning with the February Revolution,
was one of the editors of _Golos Truda_ and member of the All-Russian
Secretariat of Anarcho-syndicalists. He is an able and popular writer
and lecturer.
Mark Mratchny, another of the deported, has been an Anarchist since
1907. At the time when Hetman Skoropadsky ruled Ukraina with the help of
German bayonets, Mratchny was a member of the Revolutionary Bureau of
the students of Kharkov. He held the position of instructor in the
Soviet School Department of Kharkov, and later in Siberia. He edited the
_Nabat_ during the period of agreement between Makhno and the
Bolsheviki, and was later arrested together with the other Anarchists
who had come to Kharkov for the Anarchist Conference.
Among the deported was also Yartchuk, famous as one of the leaders of
the Kronstadt sailors in the uprising of July, 1917, a man who enjoyed
exceptional influence among the sailors and workers and whose idealism
and devotion are matters of historic record. In the group there were
also several students--mere youths who had participated in the Anarchist
hunger-strike in the Taganka prison.
* * * * *
To remain longer in Bolshevik Russia had become unbearable. I was
compelled to speak out, and decided to leave the country. Friends were
making arrangements to open a _sub rosa_ passage abroad, but just as all
preparations were completed we were informed of new developments. Berlin
Anarchists had made a demand upon the Soviet Government that passports
be issued for Alexander Berkman, A. Shapiro, and myself, to enable us to
attend the International Anarchist Congress which was to convene in
Berlin in December, 1921. Whether due to that demand or for other
reasons, the Soviet Government finally issued the required papers and on
December 1, 1921, I left Russia in the company of Alexander Berkman and
A. Shapiro. It was just one year and eleven months since I had set foot
on what I believed to be the promised land. My heart was heavy with the
tragedy of Russia. One thought stood out in bold relief: I must raise my
voice against the crimes committed in the name of the Revolution. I
would be heard regardless of friend or foe.