THE MYSTERIES OF MOSCOW
How can I convey a just idea of what present-day Moscow looks like to
an Englishman who has never been there? It is a town of mystery and
misery; of secret executions and a lawless Government; of freedom to
wave red flags and preach free love, and use language which would ensure
one’s instant arrest even in Hyde Park, but at the same time of an iron
tyranny which will not allow a word to be said against itself. It is an
inconceivable topsy-turvydom. You can do almost everything which would
get you arrested in England, but if you do almost anything which we
should consider praiseworthy, the Extraordinary Commission will at once
get hold of you. You may stand on the altar of the Cathedral and deny
that there is a God. You may advocate the murder of Kings, Dukes, Cabinet
Ministers, Members of Parliament, foreign officers and officials of every
kind, mill-managers, bankers, merchants, and Bishops, but if you dare to
suggest on the contrary that murderers of these different classes should
be arrested and tried, you are sure to get into trouble with the police.
If you try to start a purely religious revival, you will certainly be
arrested as Mr. Plekhanov was in Petrograd. If you advocate the principle
of private property, the right of trial by jury, the claims of the middle
classes, you will soon be hauled before a revolutionary tribunal.
In London we have doubled the postage rate. In Moscow they have abolished
it, and you can drop letters into a postal box without any stamp at all,
but also unfortunately without much chance of ever getting an answer,
for half the letters are never collected or delivered. In London they
have increased the tramway fares. In Moscow they have abolished them, but
unfortunately the trams do not run any longer. In England the railway
fares have been raised. In Russia they have been abolished and you can
travel free, if you are able to discover an ordinary passenger train
running, a discovery which I was never able to make. In England the price
of newspapers has been raised. In Moscow newspapers are given away or
posted up on the walls for everybody to read. In London the well-to-do
resort to great and exclusive Clubs. In Moscow such Clubs have been
converted into Children’s Orphanages and Workmen’s “Palaces,” while the
upper classes have fled or live miserably in the slums.
Some of the most whimsical things that have been written by Mr. G. K.
Chesterton, the most mysterious situations that have been invented by Mr.
Edgar Allan Poe, or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, or Mr. John Buchan, might
have been founded on fact in Moscow. In one of Mr. G. K. Chesterton’s
romances we are introduced to an Anarchists’ den, and one of the masked
conspirators betrays by his gait the fact that he is a shop-walker. Now
one of Chicherin’s principal assistants has exactly the same walk, and
I should say that he was employed in a large drapery establishment in
London. But he is not a person to laugh at, for he is deep in the secrets
of the Third International; and when he puts his head on one side, rubs
his hands gently together, and asks “What can I do for you?” you may be
sure that he _can_ “do” for you if he wants to. He certainly held my life
in his hands for some time.
Another assistant of Chicherin had been a tailor in London, where he
might perhaps be described as a devil among the tailors, while now
he is a tailor among the devils. In the East End he would press your
clothes “while you wait” and “make them look as good as new”; now he
will sign you a death-warrant while you wait. He is a dangerous, able,
and fanatical man; he has charge of Bolshevik propaganda in England, and
he also is not a person to laugh at. The Russian Communist has posed
for fifty years as the injured innocent, the poor down-trodden victim
of the Tsardom. Though he now rules one-eighth of the earth’s surface,
he still keeps up that pose, partly out of habit, partly out of policy.
And, unfortunately, it is a pose that makes a profound impression
on the British working-classes with their traditional sympathy for
the oppressed, though, as a matter of fact, the Bolshevik is now the
oppressor.
A curious feature of Red Moscow is the number of people who have got
lost in it. Members of good families are scattered in different parts
of the city, and do not know each other’s address. It is the same all
over the vast extent of Russia. Cabinet Ministers, Generals, great
landowners, able editors, girls of noble birth, are scattered throughout
the country in isolated villages and remote farmhouses, without any of
their relatives knowing of their whereabouts. When Kolchak’s troops
advanced in the spring of 1919, they discovered important personages
hidden in the most out-of-the-way places. Among them were Prince Lvov,
formerly President of the Russian Republic; Mr. Lvov, formerly Procurator
of the Most Holy Synod; and several ladies of the Imperial suite, all of
them marooned, far apart from one another, on sequestered islets in the
great Bolshevik sea, as, in pictures of the Deluge, naked figures are
represented as clinging to rocky peaks jutting up above the Flood. In
the British Isles, with their small area and their excellent train and
postal service, it is hard for one to realize the extent to which those
unfortunate castaways were cut off from the world.
Little Princes are living to-day in woodmen’s huts surrounded by
forests large as England, and are playing with plebeian boys and girls
as ragged as themselves. Strapping young Duchesses are earning their
living as dairymaids; and, if all comes right with Russia during the
next few years, the real love romances of these terrible days will
supply story-tellers with material enough to last them for the next
half-century. Unhappily there is much more of squalor and of tragedy than
of romance, as probably was the case during those “old, unhappy, far-off
days” which historical novelists make so desirable and picturesque.
Emaciated young men in the tattered uniform of Guards officers sell
matches in the streets. One distinguished General keeps a small
fried-fish shop. A bank director is doorkeeper at a Bolshevik Club.
Sometimes the first announcement one gets regarding the whereabouts of
old Russian friends is a brief note in the _Pravda_ to say that they have
been shot in some distant village “for counter-revolutionary activity.”
In most cases this accusation is probably false, but there always is
counter-revolutionary activity in Russia. At Cheliabinsk, in 1918, the
Czechs maintained a regular messenger service through Red Russia to
Warsaw and Prague, and the messengers got in touch with anti-Bolshevik
organizations in all the towns through which they passed, while, later
on, Kolchak, Denikin, and Yudenich, communicated regularly with their
supporters in Lenin-land; though I must candidly say that few of those
supporters were sufficiently secretive to qualify for membership in
the Carbonari, or Black Hand, or Freemasons, or Sinn Fein, or Ancient
Order of Elks, or any other society which makes the faintest pretence to
secrecy. To put it quite bluntly, Duchesses, rural deans, squires, and
romantic young ladies make distinctly bad conspirators, especially when
they are conspiring against professional revolutionaries whose brains,
very keen as a rule to start with, have been sharpened to an amazing
degree of acuteness by a stern apprenticeship in subterranean intrigue
and by the severe mental training undergone in the long duel of wits
between them and the sharpest police of the Tsar, a duel which ended with
the revolutionary on top.
I consequently kept aloof from White conspirators during my stay in Red
Russia, but on one occasion a lady of distinguished appearance brought
me on a large tray two pieces of confetti, one white and the other red,
and asked me with a mysterious look to choose one of them. Much to her
disgust I chose the red: had I chosen the white I should probably have
discovered that she was engaged in some fantastic monarchist adventure.
These plots have extended to England, but I would not advise my
countrymen to have anything to do with them, for they are all silly and
will only lead to useless loss of life. For that reason, indeed, they
should be suppressed by Scotland Yard as relentlessly as Red plots. The
salvation of Russia will not be accomplished by foolish conspiracies like
these. It _will_ be rather a turning of the tables, however, if Scotland
Yard puts its hand on the shoulder of some Grand Duke plotting in a West
End drawing-room against the red-capped Ishmael of the Kremlin.
In Tverskaya Street, the Strand of Moscow, there are two large Anarchist
bookshops, and the books sold there denounce all Governments and all
religions, and advocate anarchy as the cure for every human ill. I
was surprised to find, however, that the Anarchists do not advocate
complete individualism. They approve of little groups of persons
engaged in the same business joining together for purposes of trade and
work, but unfortunately their doctrine leads to little groups of men
joining together for purposes of crime. In Petrograd, for example, five
anarchists formed themselves into an association which they called “The
Union of Five Oppressed,” and seized a house which took their fancy by
simply pointing their revolvers at the owner and advising him to go
elsewhere. In the early days of Bolshevik rule there were many similar
cases in Moscow, where an acquaintance of mine, an official of the
Soviet, was turned out of his house one day by four youths, armed with
revolvers, who said that they were Anarchists.
The Moscow Anarchists have also on the Tverskaya a large Club where, if
introduced by a member, one can get food. Lectures on anarchism are given
daily in their Club and are open to the public. It is somewhat strange
that while political parties like the Mensheviks, who are almost the
same as the Bolsheviks, are prohibited from holding political meetings
or maintaining any sort of political organization, the Anarchists, whose
doctrine is the very antithesis of Communism, are allowed a certain
amount of latitude, being indeed the only political party which Lenin
will tolerate. As a matter of fact, Lenin has a soft spot in his heart
for the Anarchists, owing to the way they have been hunted and harried,
like himself, by the police of “capitalist” countries. Recently, however,
the growth of the Anarchist party has alarmed the Soviet Government, and
a good many arrests of Anarchist agitators have been made, especially
in Saratov. The Bolshevik propaganda was also directed towards proving
that Anarchism was an unsound political theory; and that an Anarchist
Government could never resist Kolchak and Denikin as the Soviet
Government had done.
There is in Petrograd a number of American Anarchists whom the United
States Government dumped down in Russia, evidently on the assumption
that Lenin was an Anarchist. These people, of whom the leaders are Emma
Goldmann and John Birkmanns, have now formed an association called
“Russian Friends of American Freedom,” of which I speak elsewhere.
Undoubtedly a great many Bolsheviks who want to go abroad are urged by
a fanatical desire to preach the Gospel of Lenin to foreign countries.
Mikhailov, the war correspondent of the _Pravda_, who writes in that
paper under the name of Sergiev, is particularly anxious to come to
England in order to evangelize the English workmen. Many of the literary
men and journalists of the Rosta (Russian Socialist Telegraph Agency)
are also anxious to represent that agency in foreign parts, generally
in England. They consider this country to be the crux of the whole
situation, and many of them are learning English in order that their
missionary labours here may be fruitful. Employees of this great news
agency speak every language in Europe, having lived abroad most of their
life; and as they will be very well paid, will enjoy an official status,
and will represent a greater and wealthier agency than Reuter, the
American Associated Press, and Havas put together, they will probably
exercise more influence on the foreign Press and therefore on the foreign
public than the official representatives of the Soviet Government.
Newspaper men who can afford to keep a Rolls-Royce and a suite of rooms
in the Ritz will impress even their most hostile English colleagues.
Other Bolsheviks want to get to England because they are doubtful of the
stability of things in Russia, and one Bolshevik of quite high position
asked me once how long he would have to live in England in order to get
naturalized. Another Bolshevik in an important military position confided
to me his desire to flee to one of the British Colonies. His wife and
family are the obstacle, however. The Soviet Government seldom allow
even their highest officials to take their families with them when they
go abroad, the families being almost invariably detained as hostages.
Technical experts, engineers, literary men, doctors, etc., are also busy
learning English, in the hope of getting away from Bolshevism, which
they detest; and if the Soviet Government ever relaxes its embargo on
emigration, there will be a rush out of the country, comparable only to a
rush out of a burning house. One man, who could not even speak English,
talked to me about crossing the Pamirs into India. I expressed no opinion
on the subject, but I am afraid that he would not be exactly welcomed by
the British authorities in India. If this book happens to fall into the
hands of British officials who find themselves in a position to succour
any of these really honest and anti-Bolshevik refugees, I hope that those
officials will make proper investigations before turning the fugitives
back.
Of course there are fanatics who want to leave Russia for the purpose
of preaching violence and revolution abroad; and in this connection
there is a curious tendency amongst the Russian revolutionists,
especially amongst the Jews from England and America, to get tired of
the success which they have achieved in Russia, and to look out with
intense eagerness and impatience for fresh worlds to conquer and fresh
Governments to overthrow. Now that they have succeeded in establishing
the ideal Socialist State of which they have so long dreamed, they are in
a desperate hurry to get away from it. This craving, which I have often
studied at close quarters and which seems to me almost a disease, is one
of the most striking characteristics of the Bolshevik movement at the
present moment. The Communists itch for propaganda, and their desire for
the destruction of sure-established social formation is intense. That
itch can no longer be satisfied in Russia, so they want to get out and do
some demolition work outside. Up to two years ago their thoughts always
ran on destruction and conspiracy, until they could not look on any
Government or Creed without experiencing an irresistible longing to sap
and overthrow it, a longing which they could only restrain at the cost
of great mental suffering. They are still like infants who have grown
accustomed to smashing things, and who are most unhappy when prevented
from doing so. Emma Goldmann, Birkmanns, Balabanova, and all the other
exiles are most anxious to get out of Russia again. To give one instance
of this disillusionment, Dr. Karlin, a Russian Jewess, who worked in
the state of Detroit, came to Russia without a passport, with the hope
of working in it after the Bolshevik revolution; three weeks in Russia
sufficed to cool her enthusiasm, and though she had lost her American
nationality, she still claimed to be treated as a foreigner and neglected
to throw in her lot with the Bolsheviks. Three weeks before I left Russia
she was suddenly seized by the Extraordinary Commission, and was in
solitary confinement when I left Moscow.