Moscow—and old Christy! Bertram saw him on the platform amidst a group
of Red soldiers, bearded porters, and _droschke_ drivers in fur caps and
long blue coats. He was wearing the same old grey suit in which Bertram
had last seen him in London, with the addition of a sheepskin waistcoat.
His lean, ugly face was twisted into a humorous smile as he saw Bertram.
“Welcome to our city!”
“God in Heaven!” said Bertram. “This is a grand meeting.”
For some reason, inexplicable to himself, the sight of Christy was like
finding a solid raft after shipwreck.
“Follow me, and don’t rub shoulders with your fellow men,” said Christy.
He led the way from the platform into the station hall. It was a great
place with white-washed walls and filled with such a stench of human
filth that Bertram felt like vomiting. The great floor space was
entirely covered with the heaped-up bodies of men, women, and children.
They lay piled up on sacks and bags, and across each other’s legs and
arms, in a tangled mass of sheepskins, rags, and mangy fur, all brown
with mud and dirt as though they had been dipped in the slime of
Flanders, as Bertram had known it in war-time winters. It was nightfall,
and they were settling down to sleep, restlessly, so that there was a
heaving of bodies, and a tossing of arms. Some slept with stertorous
breathing. Children wailed. Girls who were almost women lay in the arms
of bearded men. One man lay dead among the living, as Bertram saw at a
glance, not unfamiliar with death. His head was thrown back on a bit of
sacking, showing a thin, turkey-like neck with loose wrinkled skin. His
eyes were wide open and glazed.
“What’s all this?” asked Bertram.
“Refugees from famine,” said Christy. “The end of the journey. To-morrow
they go into camp. Apart from typhus, they’re all right now.”
Bertram breathed deeply of fresh air when they emerged from the station.
“Can I get into a hotel?” he asked presently.
“Can you do what?”
Christy laughed quietly at the question.
“This is Bolshevik Russia! The Carlton doesn’t function at the moment.
There are no hotels. The _Narcomindjel_ provides you with a billet, if
they like the look of you.”
“Who may they be?”
“The Soviet Foreign Office. East side Jews from New York deal with us,
mostly. Not bad fellows, if you’re civil.”
“Supposing they don’t like the look of me?”
Christy smiled grimly.
“You’ll get another kind of billet. With bars to the windows.”
“Any chance of that?”
“Not now. Bolshevism is busted. They want help from the outside world.
That’s why they’ve let me stay and let you come. Things are changing
pretty rapidly. I’ll tell you all about it presently. First the Foreign
Office, and Mr. Weinstein.”
He hailed a _droschke_, spoke a few words of Russian—amazing
fellow!—and Bertram found himself driving through Moscow at night, with
Christy by his side. Moscow—or some fantastic city of a dream after a
goblet of absinthe? The moon was up, and shone brightly down upon a
vision of white palaces, red walls, turreted gateways, tall bell-towers,
and clusters of pear-shaped domes, all golden and glistening in the
white moonlight. Under the gateways were deep caverns of blackness, and
high walls with fan-shaped battlements flung black shadows across broad
squares all flooded with the moon’s milky radiance. The _droschke_,
pulled by a lean and wiry horse, lurched over cobbled roads like a boat
in a rough sea, and pitched into holes and pitfalls which more than once
brought the horse to its knees. Under a gateway, very narrow, with a
turret overhead, a red lamp was burning, and there seemed to be an altar
in the little chamber at the side, glinting with gilt candlesticks. The
driver pulled off his fur cap, and crossed himself.
“The shrine of the Iberian Virgin,” said Christy. “A thousand years old,
and more powerful than Lenin in the peasant mind!”
There was a great open square on the other side of the gateway, below a
steep wall of red brick. At one end of it was a fantastic church, with a
twisted dome painted in all the colours of the rainbow. In the high wall
were arched gateways, lit by hanging lanterns, guarded by Red soldiers
whose bayonets flashed like quicksilver. At one angle of the wall was an
open staircase of red brick, leading to a high turret. Each of its steps
was clear-cut by a light behind, with strange theatrical effect. Beyond
seemed an endless vista of golden cupolas, surmounted by shining
crosses, above white walls, all glamorous and shadow-haunted.
“The Kremlin,” said Christy. “From that high tower—old Ivan
Velike—Napoleon saw Moscow burning, and read his doom in its smoke and
flame. We’re passing through the Red Square. Every stone of it has been
wet with blood. Those walls have looked down on a thousand years of
human cruelty—not ended yet. . . .”
“A cut-throat looking place,” said Bertram, and shivered a little. There
were few people about. There was no sound in the city except the
klip-clop of the lean horse, and the footsteps of sentries pacing under
the Kremlin walls.
“It holds the biggest drama in the world,” answered Christy. “What’s
happening here is going to alter history everywhere. Peace or war,
perhaps civilisation itself, is going to be decided by the brain that is
working at this hour of midnight, beyond those walls. The ruthless brain
of a fanatic who is also a realist. He experiments with human nature
like a vivisector with guinea-pigs, without compassion, in the interests
of science. To prove or disprove a theory.”
“Lenin?”
“Lenin. . . . Genius or maniac? Damned if I know!”
The Foreign Office, which Christy called by its incomprehensible name,
was in a big block of buildings at the corner of an open place beyond
the Red Square. A young soldier in an overcoat made for a bigger man, so
that the sleeves came below his hands, barred the way with his rifle at
the foot of a staircase, until Christy said, “Tavarish Weinstein.”
At the top of the staircase, Christy plunged down a corridor, turned
sharply to the left, knocked at a door, and opened it without waiting
for an answer. It was well past midnight, but at a desk heaped with
papers, a man sat working. He was a delicate-looking man, past middle
age, with a pointed beard and moustache, like a French painter. Like
such a type, also, he wore a jacket of brown velveteen. He looked up at
Christy’s entrance, and Bertram saw that the pleasant aspect of his face
was spoilt by “crossed” eyes.
“Good evening, Mr. Weinstein! This is my friend, Bertram Pollard of _The
New World_.”
“Glad to meet you, Mr. Pollard. A tiring journey, I’m sure.”
He shook hands with Bertram, with a limp, soft touch, and spoke in a
gentle, tired voice. As chief of the propaganda department of the Soviet
Republic, he did not come up to Bertram’s expectations of a leading
Bolshevik. He might have been the editor of _The Ladies’ Home Journal_,
or one of the most respectable members of the Royal Academy. He did not
even look like a Jew.
“You purpose to visit the Famine region of the Volga?” he asked Bertram,
and then, in a melancholy voice, said something about the tragic
conditions in that part of Russia. The Republic was doing its best to
cope with them. But it was very difficult. They needed foreign help.
From England and the United States.
“We have nothing to hide,” he said presently. “Go where you like, see
what you like. Write what you like. We only ask you to tell the truth.
So many lies have been told about us. Incredible! We welcome the truth.
We wish the world to know.”
“My friend Pollard is a glutton for truth,” said Christy, with just the
flicker of a wink at Bertram. “Where are you going to billet him, Mr.
Weinstein? With me, I hope?”
“Certainly. You are comfortable?”
“Luxurious, even.”
“That is good. We like to treat our guests well.”
He rang up a number on the telephone, and spoke rapid Russian. Then he
turned to Christy again.
“It is settled. Sophieskaya, 14. They have prepared a room for him. Good
evening, Mr. Pollard. I shall read your articles with interest, I am
sure.”
Christy led the way out of the building, and asked Bertram to get into
the _droschke_ again. They drove across a bridge, turned at right angles
along the bank of the river. On the other side was an astonishing view
of the Kremlin again in the white moonlight, with great blocks of
darkness between its churches and palaces and towers.
“An ‘Arabian Nights’ Dream!” said Bertram, in a low voice.
Christy did not answer him directly.
“That fellow Weinstein is not a bad fellow. As gentle as an invalid lady
at Bournemouth. As subtle as a Chinese mandarin. I don’t think he’d hurt
a spider, willingly. But of course he’d vote for the death of any
counter-revolutionary, man, woman, or child. That’s fear. Fear is the
father of cruelty. Well, here we are.”
The _droschke_ driver pulled up his horse with a clatter of hoofs. Two
soldiers standing by a sentry-box came forward with a lantern, and held
it up to Christy’s face, and Bertram’s.
“That’s all right, my children,” said Christy. “Now for a hundred
thousand roubles.”
“In Heaven’s name, what for?” asked Bertram, still ignorant of Russian
money.
“To pay the _isvostchik_—meaning the cabby. Hear him howl when I give
it him.”
Christy was right. The man wailed and whined, raised his hands to
heaven, called upon the moon as witness, flung his fur cap on the
ground, spat on the mass of paper which Christy had given him.
“_Skolka?_” said Christy.
The man renewed his loud plaint, until one of the Red soldiers struck
him on the chest with the butt-end of his rifle.
“I paid him forty thousand roubles too much,” said Christy. “He wanted
fifty thousand more. Such is the greed and dishonesty of man!”
“What’s this house?” asked Bertram, staring up at a great mansion with a
classical façade. “It looks like a palace.”
“That’s exactly what it is,” said Christy. “This is where I live.
Nothing less than a palace for dear old Christy! An English aristocrat
must have his four-poster bed and Louis Quinze suite.”
He went up a flight of steps and pulled a chain. There was the loud
jangling of a bell, and presently a great rattling of bolts.
“They keep us under lock and key, so that we don’t escape without paying
our bill,” said Christy. “You’ll find these Bolsheviks bleed the Western
capitalist.”
The door was opened by a pretty, sleepy girl, with a shawl round her
head. She greeted Christy with a smile, a yawn, and a German “_Güten
Abend_.”
“Don’t be frightened at anything you see,” said Christy. “What you don’t
see is much more alarming.”
The first aspect of things was not frightening. Bertram found himself in
a great and splendid hall, panelled in richly carved oak, with gilded
decorations. Beyond was a wide flight of stairs, leading up to a
corridor hung with tapestries. It was at the corner of the corridor that
he had his first shock. From behind a curtain, or through some door
which he had not seen, six figures appeared in single file, utterly
silent. They looked like Chinese mandarins in wonderful robes of cloth
of gold. Their pig-tails swung as they passed.
Christy turned round and winked at Bertram, and then led the way through
a noble salon, all gilt and brocade, in the Louis Quinze style. Round
the walls were portraits of men and women of the old régime, in white
wigs and flowered silks. Immense candelabra, like those at Versailles,
were suspended from a ceiling painted with cherubs and naked goddesses.
At the farthest door another unexpected figure stood motionless. It was
a Turkish soldier in a red fez, and embroidered sash round blue baggy
breeches. Christy passed through the salon, and led the way down another
corridor where Bertram was startled again by a man suddenly opening a
door, looking out, and shutting it with a bang. In that brief glimpse
Bertram had seen an Indian prince, as he seemed, in a high white turban,
and robe of cream-coloured silk.
Further down the corridor, another door opened, and a man came right out
into the passage. He wore a flannel shirt and pepper-and-salt trousers,
with his braces hanging down. His feet were bare, and he was carrying a
wine-bottle in one hand and a wet sponge in the other. He looked like a
respectable butler in a good English household, retiring for the night.
As he passed Christy, he crossed himself with the wine bottle, and
squeezed a drop of water out of the sponge on to the polished boards.
“_Le diable est mort!_” he said, with great joyfulness.
Christy passed into another room, which was an almost exact reproduction
of the Louis Quinze salon. A grand piano was open, and a young man
without a collar was playing “Three Blind Mice,” with one finger.
“This way,” said Christy.
He pulled back a heavy curtain, opened a door, and led Bertram into a
room which might have been a king’s study. It was panelled with oak, and
furnished with oak chairs and tables, elaborately carved with Gothic
decoration. A marble Venus stood on a high pedestal in the corner of the
room, and on one of the tables was a bust of Napoleon. A figure of St.
George and the Dragon in coloured marble inlaid with gold, was in front
of the window, which looked across the river to the Kremlin.
On an enormous hearth, with iron dogs, some big logs were burning.
Two candles were alight in beer bottles, next to the bust of Napoleon,
and in the centre of the room was an iron bedstead and a tin bath.
“Here we are,” said Christy. “Home at last!”
Bertram was silent for a moment, looking unutterable things. Then he
asked a series of questions, quietly but firmly.
“Tell me, have I gone raving mad? Or is this a real house in Bolshevik
Russia? Who were all those strange people? Or did I only think I saw
them?”
“It’s quite all right,” said Christy, soothingly. “I know how you feel,
because I’d the jim-jams myself when I first came here. This is the
Guest House of the Soviet Republic. It is also infested with the _Cheka_
or secret police, who will take down anything you say as evidence
against you, as the London Bobbies say, if you speak too loud, and
unwisely of dangerous things. It used to be the palace of the Sugar King
of Russia. It’s one of the few houses in Moscow which was left untouched
by the Revolution.”
“Those Orientals?” asked Bertram.
“A mission from the Far Eastern Republic.”
“That fellow with the wine bottle and the wet sponge?”
“An American newspaper correspondent. Jemmy Hart. One of the best.”
“And the dreamy fellow playing ‘Three Blind Mice’?”
“Kravintzki—one of the bright spirits of the Cheka. His signature is
necessary for all executions. That’s why he plays the piano with one
finger.”
“I don’t follow that.”
“Not to tire his wrist.”
“Well, now I know!”
He took hold of Christy’s arms and squeezed him tight.
“It’s good to see you again, you ugly old chameleon. Let’s sit and talk.
I’ve a thousand things to tell and to ask. Since you left me I’ve been
through the Slough of Despond, and the Valley of Doubt. I’m carrying a
dead heart in my body. I’m in darkness, and can’t see a ray of light
ahead.”
“Well, you’re a cheerful kind of blighter to come to Moscow!” said
Christy, with a grin. “You won’t find any rosy hope in the Volga Valley!
Nor any blaze of light ’twixt Moscow and Petrograd. But let’s talk in
front of the fire. God, how good it is to talk! How good and useless,
except to one’s own soul!”
All through the night in a Guest House of Bolshevik Russia, they talked
as only men can whose friendship is proved. Bertram spoke a little of
Joyce, and learnt that Christy’s wife was dead. They were both lonely
men, and glad of this comradeship.
L
Moscow by day was more squalid, but more cheerful, than Moscow by night.
The Kremlin as seen from Bertram’s “billet” in the Sugar King’s palace
was still magnificent and glittering under the sun’s rays, but lost some
of its mystery and fantasy as he had seen it under moonlight. The
streets were no longer deserted, but crowded with every type of Russian
life, with Asiatics among them, as they existed after a revolution which
had destroyed one of the richest, most luxurious, and most corrupt
aristocracies in Europe.
In Europe geographically, but Oriental in character and race. It did not
need Christy’s remark, “This is the East and not the West, which
explains a lot,” for Bertram to see that. Many of the people in the
streets of Moscow were Eastern types, Slav and Tartar, and Semitic. The
typical peasants of Moscow had blue eyes and straw-coloured hair, but
the flatness of cheek-bone did not belong to Western physiognomy. Some
of them were Mongolian in the slant of their eyes, in the blackness of
their hair, and the sparseness of their beards. They wore shaggy
goatskin caps brought far back behind their heads, with a mass of mangy
hair,—distinguished from the fur cap of the usual Russian peasant. Men
from the Caucasus, wearing the astrachan fez passed by, with Cossacks of
the Don in long black coats, square cut across the shoulders and falling
to their feet.
These crowds were tramp-like in their way of dress, careless of rags and
broken boots. It was difficult to distinguish any difference of class or
caste among them, except that Red Army officers and officials were
smarter than the rest, with top boots more weather tight, and fur caps
less shaggy. In the coldness of early autumn, when the first snow began
to fall, every one in Moscow was muffled up to the ears with shawls or
bits of fur, and those who had no boots swathed their legs around with
wrapping over sandals or clogs and seemed warm enough, and well enough
shod for the mud and slush.
There was no visible sign of hunger in the faces of the passers-by, and
the children especially looked fairly plump and healthy, surprisingly
well.
“There’s no famine here—yet,” said Christy. “There’s an old proverb,
‘All things roll down to Moscow.’ It holds good now. This is the seat of
the Administration. It’s stuffed with Soviet officials. They’ve a call
on the supplies of the country. And the kids get first serve. It’s fair
to say that.”
Christy was scrupulously fair to the Soviet Republic, and Bertram
thought he erred on the side of generosity. He accused him even, though
not seriously, of having been “converted” to the black cult of
Bolshevism.
But Christy in that long night talk had been illuminating, and
impartial. He had studied the Bolshevik theory and practice, as he had
seen it working, with a penetrating vision. Theoretically, he thought
there was a lot to be said for the Communist idea. What was it, after
all, but an endeavour to carry out the commands of Christ to His
apostles who had “all things in common”? It was a fanatical revolt
against the crimes of Capitalism and Individualism—Sweated Labour,
Profiteers, Warmongers, the blackguardism of Trusts, the corruptions and
cruelties of Caste.
“We can’t deny these things,” said Christy. “We can’t pretend that all
is well with Western civilisation. As we know, Pollard, it stinks with
iniquity!”
The Soviet system was simple—in theory. In return for service to the
state, the citizen would receive food, shelter, clothing, education, all
the elementary needs of life, and even its arts, graces, and amusements.
Service to the state was recognised by the membership of a Trade Union.
Once a man had his “ticket,” whatever his class of work—it applied, of
course, to women too—he drew his ration of food, clothes, and so on,
received his opera and theatre passes, was entitled to all the culture
and gifts of the state.
“Very much like a soldier in the British Army or any other,” said
Christy.
The Soviet Government was made up of a body of men elected as the
Central Executive Committee by a series of Soviets starting with the
villages and sending one of their members to a big and more important
body. They elected members in their turn to still more important groups,
until finally the Central Committee was reached.
“Very indirect,” said Bertram.
“Precisely. Not democratic. A weak point in the system. The Central
Executive is as far removed from the people as the Greek tyrants.”
Theoretically, however, the idea of common reward for common service,
thought Christy, was the ideal towards which mankind had always been
groping.
“And actually,” said Bertram, “how has it worked?”
“It hasn’t,” answered Christy. “It’s failed to work, hopelessly. It’s
landed them all into an unholy ruin. They admit, with reservations,
their own ghastly failure.”
The chief cause of failure, beyond any doubt, was the resistance of the
peasant to the system of requisition. To ration every citizen, it was,
of course, necessary to commandeer the peasant’s labour and produce. All
that he produced over and above his own needs belonged to the State. Red
soldiers went down to his farmstead to remind him of the fact, and to
collect his grain, potatoes, flax, butter, vegetables, eggs, poultry,
and milk. The peasant said, “Why should I sow that others should reap?”
He concealed his produce, bartered it secretly for jewels, furs,
trinkets, any old thing, with city folk who didn’t find their daily
ration enough for daily life. When caught, he was shot or imprisoned.
When many had been shot, the others ceased to sow, undercultivated their
fields,—even burnt their grain!
This peasant revolt against Communism broke the country, already ruined
by war, revolution, and counter-revolutionary armies. The Central
Executive could not get their supplies to ration the city folk. Factory
workers, not getting food, abandoned the factories for the fields. No
more engines could be made or repaired. The transport system broke down.
It became more difficult to convey food to the cities. They
disintegrated. In Petrograd there were three million people at the
beginning of the war. There were now seven hundred and fifty thousand.
All industry had ceased. No spades, ploughs, reaping machines could be
replaced. The whole machinery of Russian life had collapsed. Now the
Famine on the Volga threatening twenty-five million people with
starvation, had hit the only class which was comparatively comfortable,
the peasants of Russia.
“How much is the famine due to Bolshevism?” asked Bertram.
Christy pondered.
“It’s due to the drought. Last year and this. An act of God, as men say,
though I don’t believe it, if there is a God, and He is kind. But its
severity was increased by the System. The Bolsheviks requisitioned the
peasants’ reserves to feed the Red Army defending Russia against
Koltchak, Denikin, Wrangel, and the rest. There were droughts and
famines in Russia before. The peasants expected them, and kept reserves
of grain for a lean year. Now there are no reserves. In that way
Bolshevism is responsible for the famine. But in no other way. Let’s be
fair.”
“You’re too damned fair,” said Bertram. “How about the atrocities—the
inhuman cruelties—the Chinese tortures?”
Christy lowered his voice. They were talking in the palace of the Sugar
King, infested with secret police.
“I’ve no personal knowledge. The _Cheka_ keeps its secrets. There have
been many executions—in batches. Men and women, without mercy. Perhaps
in Eastern Russia Mongols have done the dirty work. But I’ll say just
this—to be fair again. All Governments, especially in time of
Revolution, are ruthless against those who challenge their authority and
seek to overthrow their power. So it would be in any country in some
degree. These people hold their place against hordes of enemies, within
and without. They proclaimed the Reign of Terror against all plotters
and counter-revolutionaries. Fear made them cruel. Fear made them kill
the Czar, as the French killed poor old Louis and Marie Antoinette. Now
there are no more counter-revolutions, and the Terror has abated.”
“Why have counter-revolutions ceased?” asked Bertram.
“The people are sick of bloodshed. The game’s too dangerous. And Russia
is so stricken that even the last of the old régime, who still linger on
in holes and corners, believe that the overthrow of the Soviet Republic
would be the last blow to the life of Russia. At least it functions. It
makes a train move, now and then. It gets some supplies from the
peasants. It sends some seeds to the Volga valley. It works. . . . And
it has abandoned Communism.”
“What’s that?” asked Bertram, astounded.
“The whole thing has been scrapped by Lenin, its chief, author and
organiser. On October the eighteenth he ‘blew the gaff’ on the whole
show, confessed the utter breakdown of the Communist system—for the
reasons I’ve given, and some others. ‘We’ve suffered a terrible defeat
on the Economic front,’ he said. ‘The only way by which we may save
ourselves is by a strategic retreat on prepared positions. He’s restored
private property, to a great extent, and the right of private trading,
as you’ll see. He has abandoned rationing, and re-established money for
wages and payment. The kind of money I paid to our _isvostchik_ last
night—the _droschke_ driver! Four hundred thousand roubles to the
English pound. One has to carry a carpet-bag instead of a purse.”
“God!” said Bertram. “An awful mess!”
“The worst mess in the world. The greatest tragedy in modern history.
Another experiment in human progress has ended in disaster to a hundred
and fifty million people. Famine has stricken them, and will creep even
to the edge of Moscow before the winter is out. Pestilence sweeps them
like a scourge. And Lenin, in the Kremlin, is trying to think of some
way out of ruin. I think he’s found a way, which at least he will try.”
“Tell me.”
Christy lowered his voice still further.
“Alliance with Germany. Red soldiers in exchange for railway engines.
Arsenals in return for economic aid. A threat of war to France and
Poland, with all the Continent afire, unless Europe comes to her aid.
International blackmail.”
“That’s Hell,” said Bertram.
“If it happens,” answered Christy. “You’ve just come in time to see the
transition from Communism to Capitalism. You’ll find it interesting
before you get down to the Famine. This city is a melodrama, if you keep
your eyes open.”
Bertram kept his eyes open, and his ears. Building on Christy’s outline
of information, he was able to fill in the details of Russian life from
personal observation, and plunged into it.