[SN: BEFORE THE STORM]
Such a fiasco would have been enough to discredit the movement in any
other country. But the Bolsheviks die hard, and they are quick to
profit, not only by other people’s mistakes, but by their own. They saw
that it was useless to attempt anything in Irkutsk without getting the
artillery over to their side. So they set to work systematically to
detach each battery from its allegiance to the Provisional Government.
I used to hear through the German agent how they were getting on, how
first one battery and then another succumbed, till at last only one
was left on which the authorities could rely. In time this also was
won over. The work required patience, and it was not until Christmas
week that the Bolsheviks were ready to turn out the Government. The
officers in the army, of course, knew what was happening, but they
were powerless. In any case they were not trained political agitators,
and they had received no political education. They knew little of the
lives of their men, they had no especial sympathy with their desires
for more freedom and power, and the inner meaning of what was going on
before their eyes escaped them. It will probably be so in every army
infected by Bolshevik agitators. From the outset their privileges, and
the distance enjoined by their rank, handicap the officers in dealing
with these men.
As usual, treachery was everywhere. Kerenski had sent down an emissary
with instructions to watch the situation for him. The man’s name was
Strendberg, which looks German-Jewish, but he professed to be a Finn.
He spoke German fluently; but when the Allied officers came to Irkutsk
to investigate the arming of the prisoners of war, he denied that he
knew a word of German. After the Revolution he acknowledged that he had
played Kerenski false, and had used his influence to pervert the army
still more thoroughly. The Bolsheviks rewarded him by making him their
Commander-in-Chief for a time. It is curious that the German prisoners
of war at Krasnoyarsk had planned an insurrection to take place on the
very day that fighting began at Irkutsk. A War Staff had been formed,
every German officer had his task assigned to him, and if the coup had
succeeded, it must have thrown the whole of Siberia into confusion.
A Russian officer, who understood German, overheard the prisoners
speaking about it and reported the matter to Irkutsk. The last act of
the Provisional Government was to take severe measures to punish the
offenders, and to make a repetition of the offence impossible. If
it was a coincidence, it was surely a most remarkable one, that the
Germans should have hit upon the same date as the Bolsheviks for their
rising.
[SN: THE STORM BURSTS]
Meanwhile everybody knew what was coming, and people began to get
very nervous. The most ordinary thing was enough to start a panic. At
the sound of machine-guns practising I have seen a crowd gather and
then, taken by a sudden impulse, run like a flock of sheep, they knew
not where. During these long months all classes of society displayed
a feverish gaiety. Never were the streets so full, the theatres and
cinematographs so crowded, or the shops so busy. Money seemed to have
no value except to purchase one more pleasure, before the time when
there would be no pleasures at all. I shall not easily forget the
evening when there came a lying telegram that Venice had fallen. The
people in the streets acclaimed the news with shouts of wild laughter,
and they could not have been merrier if their own army had taken
Berlin. It was not so much want of sympathy for Italy, as extreme
nervousness finding some excuse for expression. The sword of Damocles
hung above our heads, and nobody knew when or upon whom it would fall.
Ordinary good-byes in those days had something of the solemnity of an
eternal farewell. The afternoon before the fighting began, I had been
giving a lesson in the town and was taking leave of the family. They
asked the usual question, “When will you come again?” A silence fell
upon us. Who knew if we should ever meet again?
The storm broke at last. The Bolsheviks occupied the chief Government
institutions and issued an ultimatum to the Younkers and Cossacks to
deliver up their arms. As this was equivalent to saying, “Dilly, Dilly,
come and be killed,” the invitation was refused and the fighting began.
On one side were a thousand Younkers and Cossacks armed with rifles
and machine-guns; on the other, twenty thousand Bolshevik soldiers and
Red Guards, supported by four batteries of Field Artillery, some heavy
howitzers, and a number of siege guns. Between these unequal forces
the battle raged for ten days. The Younkers had possession of a few
brick and stone buildings near the river Angara. The Cossacks were in
their wooden barracks, and they afterwards took a children’s hospital
commanding their position. The Bolsheviks were everywhere else. The
Younkers showed great bravery in attack. At the third attempt they
stormed the bridge over the Angara and blew it up, thus preventing
reinforcements from reaching the Bolsheviks by this route. They also
took the White House, the largest and strongest building in Irkutsk.
Here they captured some of the leading members of the Soviet, whom,
however, they treated with perfect courtesy. The cowardice of the
Bolshevik soldiers was appalling. At the White House some ran and hid
themselves in cellars and some in the lofts, while others reported
themselves sick. It was a building which ten men could have held
against a thousand, and which need never have been taken at all. The
Younkers asked one lot of prisoners why they were fighting so badly.
“Well,” answered the soldiers, “we are only fighting because we are
ordered to.” “Aren’t you Bolsheviks, then?” “No, nothing of the sort.”
“Would you fight for the Czar?” “Yes, certainly, if we were ordered
to.” The Bolshevik theory of equality between officers and men worked
out as it always will do under stress of actual danger. On one occasion
two scouts were wanted to carry a message across a valley infested
with Cossacks. A whole company refused, one after the other. At last
the only two educated men in the ranks volunteered. They had held
back, not out of cowardice, but merely because they had been doing all
the dangerous work for the company since the fighting began. It was
interesting to watch the Bolshevik general with his men. They used to
come slouching in from patrol and the general would try to get a report
from them. He had to put on a jovial, hail-fellow-well-met air and
clap them heartily on the back, saying, “Now, comrade, what have you
been doing with yourself?” The comrade might, or might not, have seen
something of the enemy. Then the general, with extreme politeness, as
of a shopwalker conducting a lady to the silk-counter, would suggest,
“Now, comrade, do you think you could just go and have a look along
those houses over there?” “Oh no,” said the soldiers, “we are hungry,
comrade. We must go and have our dinner.” And the poor general had to
wait about in the cold, until he could coax or wheedle some soldier
into doing that bit of patrol for him.
We were privileged to be in the thick of the fighting. Our house
was the nearest of the regimental buildings to the Cossacks and the
most exposed to danger. On the first night a desperate struggle took
place half a mile to the north of us, where the Cossacks tried to
rush a Bolshevik battery. In our courtyard the air was alive with
the singing of bullets, but this did not prevent us from paying
or receiving visits. And then, amid the thunder of artillery, the
rattle of machine-guns, and all the tumult of a battle, a report was
brought to us that a mad dog in the neighbourhood had broken loose and
bitten a woman, and therefore it was not advisable for us to venture
out of doors! This anti-climax was too much for us, and we gave way
to helpless laughter. Next morning we were in a more serious mood.
During breakfast we noticed a Bolshevik soldier crouching down under
our window. We asked him what he was doing. He explained that in the
night the Cossacks had driven them back and that our house was now the
foremost point in the Bolshevik line. We went out to have a look, and
could see the Cossacks converging in upon us, while just behind our
garden the Bolsheviks were advancing in open order. With all possible
speed we packed a few things together and made our way through the
Bolshevik lines to the barracks, bullets whistling past our ears, or
burying themselves with a dull thud in the snow as we passed. At the
barracks we found the remaining officers of the regiment, and their
families, assembled. Those officers, who did not choose to fight for
the Bolsheviks, could declare themselves neutral and were not molested.
If they asked any questions, the soldiers simply ignored them. Some
officers were really active on the side of the Bolsheviks; but the
soldiers would not listen to their advice, with the result that
hundreds of lives were lost.
[SN: IRKUTSK BOMBARDED]
In spite of the stupidity and cowardice of the Bolsheviks, the bravery
of the Younkers was of little avail, as the numbers against them were
too overwhelming. The town was ringed in with a girdle of fire; night
and day the batteries poured down upon it an unending rain of shell. I
climbed on the top story of the barracks in order to follow the results
of the shooting, and saw what I would give much to forget. An especial
target of the Bolsheviks was the children’s hospital occupied by the
Cossacks. We could see the shells strike it, smashing in the windows
and tearing great holes in the fabric, while, from the other end of the
building, the children were being carried away as quickly as possible.
Not all the children were saved. Great columns of smoke and fire rose
unceasingly from all parts of the town, and it seemed as if nothing
could survive that bombardment. After their day’s work the cannoneers,
a horrible glee shining through the grime on their faces, used to go
home snapping their fingers and dancing with triumph, carried beyond
themselves with the lust of blood and sheer joy of destruction. In
that weird setting, the red light of burning houses tingeing all the
atmosphere, their dark, leaping figures seemed like devils straight
from hell.
The Younkers were caught in a trap and their fate appeared certain.
However, the Consuls interfered, and secured an end of fighting
on honourable terms. The Younkers were to lay down their arms and
to receive a safe-conduct to their homes. The Bolsheviks pledged
themselves to retain only certain of their younger classes under arms,
the rest were to be demobilised, and, like the Younkers, sent home.
The fighting had cost the lives of about two thousand men. The numbers
of the wounded will never be known, because many of the officers and
others of the bourgeoisie, concealed their wounds out of fear of
revenge. Even schoolboys had stolen away to take part in the fighting.
Afterwards they crept back to their families again, and only their
immediate friends knew anything about it.
[SN: BOLSHEVIK TRIUMPH]
After so long a bombardment, I expected to find Irkutsk laid waste.
But, on the whole, surprisingly little damage was done. Certain
buildings held by the Younkers had been battered about, one or two
schools and a printing establishment had been burnt outright. The
soldiers had plundered and then set fire to Vtorova’s--the Harrod’s of
Irkutsk. There was also some miscellaneous bombardment of houses in
which lived capitalists obnoxious to the Bolsheviks. This was mean and
dastardly, but fortunately the shooting was very bad, and the houses
suffered little. Considering that the town was quite at the mercy of
a victorious and revolutionary soldateska, it came off marvellously
well. The soldiers looted whatever houses they were quartered in, but
there was little forcible entry. One Jewish tradesman told me how a
party of soldiers broke into his shop and demanded food. He was in
great fear of the Bolsheviks, and thought they were going to rob him
of all he possessed. But they only took thirty pounds of sausage, and
left him without troubling about anything else. He was amused, because
the sausages happened to be “kosher,” and contained no pork at all. I
am the more inclined to insist on the comparative moderation of the
soldiers, because the most alarming reports of the Irkutsk fighting
have appeared in American and English magazines. Here is a specimen.
In an article which appeared in _Harper’s_ and the _Fortnightly_ for
November, 1918, an American journalist says that a Russian gave him
the following account of the fight: “We had a nice little fuss here
in January at the time the Red Guards captured the city. Some of the
finest buildings were shelled. Three thousand citizens lost their lives
after a terrible siege in the public museum. Several Englishmen and
Americans were killed.” Scarcely one of these statements is true; in
fact, the passage is pure invention on the face of it. The fighting
took place, not in January, but in December. Only two thousand fell
altogether, of these few were non-combatants, and not a single one was
American or English.
[SN: UNCHAINED RUSSIA]
One non-combatant certainly was foully murdered. This was the
Socialist-Revolutionary Patlych. He was one of the great champions
of Socialism, and he had repeatedly suffered under the Czar for
his opinions. All who knew him respected him for the firmness with
which he had borne hardship, and for the unspoiled kindliness of his
nature. Conceiving a great horror of bloodshed, he took no part in
the fighting, but worked for the Red Cross among the wounded. After
a time it occurred to him that he might be able to put a stop to
the slaughter by ascertaining the terms on which the parties were
prepared to negotiate. Accompanied by a friend, he first went to the
Younkers, who received him politely, and communicated to him their
terms. Afterwards he went to the Bolsheviks, who treated him with great
harshness and suspicion. At last they took him to their leaders--three
common soldiers who refused to have anything to do with him. He was
led back through the Bolshevik lines, and then suddenly shot from
behind. His friend managed to escape, although the Bolsheviks did their
best to kill him too, in order to get rid of an inconvenient witness.
Patlych received a public funeral, the most imposing that I have seen
in Russia, and Russia is a land of imposing funerals. All classes of
society joined in showing their respect to the great Socialist, and
even the Bolsheviks had the insolence to follow in the procession.
But they did nothing to punish his murderers. I have mentioned the
crime because it is so characteristic of the Bolshevik system. They
have been extolled by certain journalists as having discovered a new
principle of universal benevolence and the world-wide brotherhood of
the working-man. An American journalist, C. E. Russell, has written
a book, “Unchained Russia,” in which he sweetly discourses on the
loving-kindness of the Bolsheviks. And yet we find them murdering a
fellow-socialist only because his opinions were a shade less red than
their own. Their doctrine is not one of love, but of hate, and much as
they hate the capitalist, they hate other Socialists far more. Family
quarrels are always the bitterest, and the lot of the Socialists has
been harder under the Bolsheviks than it ever was under the Czar.
One final touch of horror, and I have done with horrors. I only mention
it as it is characteristic of that Russian morbidity of temperament
which Englishmen find it so hard to understand. After the fighting
was ended, the dead bodies were collected and stacked in various
public buildings. For days this was one of the sights of Irkutsk, and
people flocked to see it. Corpses of men, women, and children were
piled in heaps for every one to look at. You could see fashionable
women daintily lifting their skirts and picking their way between the
dead bodies, or young girls and boys staring with naïve curiosity
at the sight. In one building the room of the Army Paymaster was
requisitioned, and he used to sit at his desk, faced by a wall of dead
bodies, while men and women came to receive their money. The prisoners
of war went too, and vowed that never should a revolution cause such
scenes in Germany; they were prepared to suffer anything rather than
that.
[SN: SOLDIERS’ COUNCILS]
We thus see Bolshevism sitting throned on a pile of dead bodies. Since
so many people are still inclined to regard the movement as to some
extent an expression of the people’s will, it may be interesting to
state exactly how the Bolsheviks came into power. It was only through
the soldiers, and these soldiers they won over to their side only by
the promise of peace. The elections for the Constituent Assembly at
Irkutsk just before the second Revolution showed that the Bolsheviks
had no following except in the army. The soldiers were bitterly hated
by the people. I have seen peasant women shake their fists in the
soldiers’ faces and curse them for the disasters they had brought on
Russia. The soldiers merely laughed and shouted, “Peace, peace.” Many
of the demobilized soldiers, when they arrived at their homes, were
shot by the peasants. Once the Bolsheviks were in power, the soldiers
insisted on their promises being kept and on being demobilized. They
were implored to stay and fight for the good old cause of Socialism;
but they answered roughly, “We are not Socialists. We are Bolsheviks.”
They had not the slightest notion what the Bolsheviks were, and if
you had told them they were extreme Monarchists, it would have made
no difference, so long as they brought peace. A list of volunteers
was opened at Irkutsk, and only fifty men enrolled themselves. The
Bolsheviks began to feel the disadvantages of the Soldiers’ Councils
they had created. The new Government issued an order that the
demobilized soldiers were to give up their equipment and rifles. The
Soldiers’ Councils met and passed a resolution that each soldier was
free to take his equipment home with him. Soldiers were willing to sell
their rifles for a song, and the bourgeois were thus enabled to equip
themselves for the next struggle with the Bolsheviks. The most amazing
scenes took place. A friend of mine was approached by a soldier and
asked what he would give for a machine-gun. He thought the whole affair
was a joke, and answered quite gravely that he had got in a sufficient
stock of machine-guns for the summer, but he was rather short of
field artillery. The soldier said he would talk to his comrades about
it, and next day actually returned with an offer to steal and sell a
field-gun at a stated price. The bargain was concluded, and although
the Bolsheviks searched high and low for it, they never found where the
gun was hidden. Government and regimental stores were openly plundered.
The second-hand market was full of them for weeks. Sugar to the value
of thousands of pounds was stolen from the 12th Regiment. One night the
sentry set to guard the regimental chest disappeared, taking with him
a month’s pay for the whole regiment. Such things as the Bolsheviks
particularly wanted to keep were removed from the different storehouses
to a common centre. On the way the waggons openly stopped at the
second-hand market and a certain proportion of the stores was sold. So
badly was the Bolshevik State organized that these thefts were never
discovered by the officials in control, the reason being that they
were mostly ignorant soldiers who could not even count. Bolshevism, as
conceived by its leaders, may be something great and exhilarating. But
the Bolsheviks were put into power by the soldiers, and the soldiers
only wanted two things--peace and opportunities for plunder.
[SN: CONSPIRACIES]
Conspiracies were constantly being formed against them. In one of
these, the town was divided into eight districts, each under its
leader. The eight leaders knew one another, but in the separate
districts each conspirator knew only his leader, and he did not know
who else belonged to the cause. It behoved one in those days to guard
carefully one’s tongue. I had a pupil with whom I was on excellent
terms, a business man in the town. He showed me the damage that the
Bolsheviks had done to his house, without expressing an opinion about
it, however. He did not know whether I might not be a Bolshevik spy. I,
on the other hand, said nothing, because I had at last learned to hold
my tongue. But one day during the lesson there came on a great fall of
snow; I had incautiously gone out without an overcoat, and he offered
to lend me his to go back home in. It was the only one the Bolsheviks
had left him, a musty, mouldy, old green thing, not worth the stealing.
I put it on, and the effect was too much for his caution. “Why,” he
said, “you look just like a Bolshevik!” Our laughter broke the ice, and
we became fast friends.
The Bolsheviks had no means of satisfying the discontent of the
people. They had little food, and did not know how to obtain more.
The peasants absolutely refused to sell to them. The prisoners of
war used to organize expeditions to the surrounding villages to buy
flour. The peasants would at first regard them with suspicion, and
deny that they had anything to sell. The prisoners used to protest
that they were not Bolsheviks, they were only prisoners of war--and
they got as much as they wanted. The Bolshevik army was crumbling to
pieces, and scarcely a man was left. They managed in time to collect
a few men--ne’er-do-wells, criminals, former policemen, and some of
the unemployed--and with these they made up a kind of army. And on one
pretext or another they disarmed the whole of the bourgeoisie. But they
had no means of resisting any strong concerted effort to put them down.
And then some one had the brilliant idea of organizing the prisoners of
war.
[SN: PRISONERS’ ASSOCIATIONS]
I was able to follow this movement closely through all its stages
until I left Irkutsk. I was at the first meeting called to discuss
the question. The hall was filled with Austro-Hungarian and German
prisoners of war, and with a miscellaneous public of Red Guards,
Bolsheviks, and their sympathizers. A president, vice-presidents, and
various other officials were elected from among the prisoners. The
Germans were conspicuous by their reserve, and held aloof. Nominally,
the meeting was under the leadership of an Austrian, but it soon passed
into the hands of a member of the Soviet called Izaaksohn. Whenever it
appeared to be going off the rails, he brought it back, and kept it on
what was obviously a definitely thought-out course. The feeling between
the Germans and the Austrians was very bad, and was not improved by the
taunts hurled at the former for their cowardice in not speaking out.
Finally, a resolution was passed condemning the German Government in
round terms for its greed and aggression, and declaring the intention
of the meeting to form an association of prisoners of war. The misdeeds
of Austria were altogether ignored in the resolution. Prisoners’
Associations had been formed all over Siberia. At Stretensk the
prisoners had torn the national cockade from their caps and replaced
it with the red ribbon of the International. At Beresovka fighting had
taken place between the Germans and the Hungarians, because the former
still hung back. At Omsk the town was in the hands of the prisoners,
who kept their officers in close confinement and had killed some of
them. They also had the railway station in their power, and would not
allow any prisoners to return home. A prisoner could either become a
member of the Omsk Red Guard or be sent back to where he came from.
The new German Association declared that they would go home first and
prepare the ground for the Revolution, and then the bourgeois could
follow. The German Government thought otherwise. Not a single prisoner
of war was allowed through the German lines. I know of one sergeant who
escaped and reached the German lines in Central Russia. He was warned
to go back, but he could not believe his ears; he thought the Germans
would be certain to welcome their own men. He insisted on advancing,
and was shot dead. Later in the summer I was informed that the Germans
were shooting all returned prisoners who could be proved to have had
anything to do with the Bolsheviks. The success of the Revolution in
Germany proves that some, at any rate, managed to get through. The
Austrians put their Bolsheviks in internment camps.
Meanwhile strange things were happening at Irkutsk itself. Although
peace had been signed, prisoners of war from Russia were being
concentrated at Irkutsk. Two or three hundred of them were armed
and were set to guard not only their own encampment, but also the
munition stores of the Bolsheviks. The Russians had no faith in their
own men, and insisted on having Germans. Many prisoners in the
town were instructing the Red Guards and Anarchists in the various
branches of war--artillery, cavalry, and the machine-gun. Two or three
flying machines were brought to Irkutsk, to be flown, it was said,
by German aviators. Transports of prisoners from the east were held
up indefinitely in the town. They came with the soldiers, subject to
military discipline as at the front. Within a day all that was changed.
Saluting ceased and discipline existed no longer. In one case the
leader of a transport was arrested because he was paying the officers
more per day than the men. All his money, to the amount of several
thousands of pounds, was taken from him. All the protocols that had
been collected against the prisoners were destroyed. A German sergeant
was killed in the streets of Irkutsk for refusing to remove the badges
of his rank. The Allies took alarm at the concentration of such large
armed forces, and sent officers to investigate the movement. They were
put off with bare-faced lies. At a time when at least ten thousand
prisoners were under arms, they were assured that only fifteen hundred
of them were so. In April there was a great meeting of delegates from
all the associations of prisoners in Siberia. The rules of membership
were decided upon, and among them was the following: “The members are
pledged to take up arms whenever the Central Committee calls upon them
to do so, or if there is no time to appeal to the Central Committee,
whenever the Local Committee calls upon them to do so.” In addition
to those already enrolled in the Red Army, the Association gave the
Bolsheviks an enormous number of men pledged to support them with arms
when called upon. I say enormous advisedly. An Austrian with whom I
talked reckoned the number at a million. This is certainly too large,
but in any case the Association doubled, if it did not treble, the
number of soldiers at the Soviet’s disposal.
This propaganda soon made itself felt. Simeonof had been able to do
what he liked with the Red Guards; they never stood up to him. The
Bolshevik Commissar for Foreign Affairs made a despairing speech,
in which he candidly admitted that the Red Army was worthless. The
prisoners changed the aspect of affairs altogether, and without them
the Bolsheviks would not have been able to resist either Simeonof or
the Czecho-Slovaks. By means of their propaganda the Bolsheviks killed
two birds with one stone. They obtained help against their enemies,
they also undermined the capitalist states of Central Europe. They were
cleverer than the Germans. Suppose that the Germans after the Kaiser’s
fall had treated our prisoners kindly, and preached to them the
doctrines of Socialism. If it had been done in the proper way it might
have been dangerous. But then the Russian Socialist leaders were true
to the International, and really desired some higher ideal than country
to guide their class. The German worker will fight to get privileges
for himself, but I never found that he had a feeling of community
with the workers outside Germany. He preached the doctrine of hate as
cordially as his officers.
[SN: ANARCHISTS]
With the idea of coaxing the prisoners into their association the
Bolsheviks used to arrange “evenings” for them. There would be
speeches, plays, some music, and, at the end of it all, dancing. The
Anarchists always attended, and were easily the most interesting people
present. Their leader was the man I have described in a previous
chapter as having murdered two whole families. He was thought to be
insane, and there was a horrible set stare in his eyes as if he were
haunted by the ghosts of his victims. His manners seemed to indicate
that among other laws to be abolished were those of good society. He
used to come smoking a long thick pipe, and when he saw that any one
was at the proper distance behind him, he used to swing round suddenly
and hit the man a smack in the face with the hot bowl. Then his pipe
used to be passed round from one to other of the Anarchists, and, with
the terrible eye of their leader upon them, they would have to look
as if they enjoyed it. The Bolsheviks did not quite know what to do
with the Anarchists, as none of their hirelings were anxious to pull
this particular chestnut out of the fire for them. They gave a great
deal of trouble. They once raided the Police Office and destroyed all
the criminal records. On another occasion they surrounded the market,
and after having fired into the air, stole everything they could grab
in the panic that followed. At last the Bolsheviks hit upon the plan
of sending them to fight Simeonof. They rode through the town in fine
style, their band playing, their black flag flying, and a pleased crowd
to see them off. But when the train reached the front scarcely an
Anarchist was left. They had nearly all sold their rifles and run away
_en route_.
[SN: PRO-GERMANISM]
Meanwhile the treaty with Germany had been signed and ratified, and
German influence once more became dominant in Russia. German officers
travelled up and down Siberia inspecting positions for defence. Under
their directions, it was said, a great camp had been built on the River
Selenga in order to hold up any advance from the east. At Irkutsk a
building was got ready to house a staff of eighty German officers.
From time to time prisoners of war occupied the telegraph office, took
notes of all telegrams that had been sent, and for days together were
in immediate communication with the Fatherland. German trade agents
were busy in Irkutsk concluding contracts on terms which the Russians
protested were very easy. Delivery of the goods was promised for
August, payment was to be in three instalments, the third not to be
till a year after the close of war, and the rouble was to be taken
at par. The rich merchant class, I found, were quite reconciled to
the separate peace, since it gave them an opportunity of trading with
Germany. They violently objected to doing business with any one else.
They understood the Germans and the Germans understood them. It is
so all over Russia, and when the peace of the world is restored, the
Russian merchants will welcome the chance of returning to their German
friends. Nearly all the newspapers wrote in the German interest. An
account of the attack on Zeebrugge appeared in a Soviet newspaper
under the heading, “How they lie.” Even now German influence is still
almost as strong as ever. Within the last month or two newspapers
have been suppressed because of their rabid Anglophobia combined with
pro-Germanism. At a certain Siberian town, when the English Consul gave
to the local papers an account of the terms of the Armistice, they
absolutely refused to print them. They declared that Germany would
never assent to a fifth of those terms. And finally the Bolsheviks
appointed as their Commander-in-Chief a German noble from Riga--Baron
von Taube. How came a nobleman to be in that galley? The relations
between the Bolsheviks and the Germans were hard to fathom. On the
one hand, there was the pro-German, anti-Entente propaganda of their
newspapers, and the fact that some hundreds of German officers of high
rank were in the Bolshevik service assuming control of operations. On
the other hand, there was the Socialist, anti-monarchical propaganda
among the prisoners, which must have been extremely distasteful to
the German Government. With characteristic perfidity the Bolsheviks
were trying to make the best of both worlds, taking from the
Capitalist Governments what they were willing to give, and using
the breathing-space they gained in order to undermine Capitalism
everywhere. But it is still not clear how far the German Government
was ready to go, and whether they would have allowed all the prisoners
to be armed and sent to the Japanese front. The concentration of
prisoners at Irkutsk could not have taken place without their consent,
and it must have meant something. It seems very much as if the recent
sudden activity in the Bolshevik armies was due to a German brain. This
vigorous and successful fighting north, east, south and west points to
a superior intellect at work somewhere. And the Bolsheviks have shown
no such military genius in their campaigns that one might expect it to
come from them.
[SN: BRITISH CONSUL]
Meanwhile in this nest of German intrigue my position became very
difficult. I have not dwelt at length upon my reasons for severing my
connection with Germany. I think they will be obvious to any civilized
person. In renouncing my allegiance I left all I possessed in the hands
of the Germans, so that at any rate I did not get the best of the
bargain. In the circumstances I went to the English Consul, explained
to him how I stood, and that I feared that I might be made to fight for
Germany or the Bolsheviks in the immediate future, and asked him for
a paper enabling me to get out of Russia. There followed weary months
of waiting while we telegraphed to the Home Government. The Bolsheviks
delayed all and suppressed half of what we tried to send. At last a
wire arrived announcing that British protection was to be accorded to
me. But that was only half the battle, the more strenuous half was
with the Soviet. They absolutely refused to let me go. The British
Consul at Irkutsk had a great name with them; they were more afraid
of him than of all the other consuls put together. When they heard
that he was interested in a matter, they used to give up resistance
to him as a bad job. But in my case some influence stiffened them,
and they were obstinate. Not that they wished me ill. With that touch
of topsy-turvydom, which is never absent from Russian affairs, they
urged the Consul to let me escape. “Why doesn’t he escape?” they said.
“It is quite easy.” And it was--for Germans. Meanwhile I was spied
on wherever I went. In the morning when I went down to the Consul’s,
a tall Austrian officer used to pick me up and march behind me with
set military pace until I had “reached my objective.” Afterwards he
would follow me home again, keeping exactly the same distance all the
while. His countenance was so lean and mournful that I could not help
christening him “Don Quixote.” But I was sorry for the Austrians;
I thought they had more brains than to spy like that. Then, quite
unexpectedly, the Central Soviet at Moscow telegraphed that I was to
be allowed to go. I have since found out that it was through a lucky
misunderstanding.[1] Anyhow the Irkutsk people at last gave me a
licence to travel. But my troubles were not over yet. The stations all
along the line were picketed with prisoners of war, whose business it
was to see that only the right prisoners escaped. They cared nothing
for the Soviet’s licence. At other stations there were Red Guards whose
business it was to see that no one left Russia too rich. Our journey
was full of thrills, but fortunately without adventure. We only just
escaped, however. We wanted to leave the train and go down the river
by boat from Stretensk; but as our passports said nothing about this
route, the local Soviet would not allow us to go. We watched the
others depart with envy and regret. That boat was held up by brigands,
and the passengers robbed of all they possessed. At other times it is
a journey I can recommend--especially in May. Once more the hills were
purple with rhododendron, and the woods were deep with a profusion of
wild flowers, all the prettier for being unknown. At last one evening
our train ran down into Vladivostok, and we saw again the sea, and the
_Suffolk_ flying the English flag.
[SN: RELEASE]
I have tried in these papers to avoid as much as possible questions of
principle, and without malice or favour to relate what my experiences
were. To some I may appear like those Catholic historians, who think
that they have demolished the Reformation when they have proved the
land-hunger of the great Protestant nobles, or like the Protestants,
who imagine that they have demonstrated the absurdity of Catholicism
when they have made out a list of the crimes of the Borgias. What
I have said has scarcely anything to do with first principles. The
Revolution will fail, as all Revolutions fail, in that it will be
followed by a violent reaction apparently sweeping away every trace of
its existence. The Revolution will succeed, as all Revolutions succeed,
in that it has planted an idea in men’s minds, where it is inviolable,
and in due time it will ripen and bring forth fruit an hundredfold. I
should be sorry if it should be thought that I have done an injustice
to Russia. There is no country so difficult for an Englishman to
understand. Nothing is certain about it except its surprises. The
Russians are as muddle-headed and stupid as the Englishman of a
_Daily Mail_ nightmare, and as quick in perception and polished as a
Frenchman, as fond of tea and talk as an Oriental, as open-minded,
acute, and subtle as an Athenian, as lazy as a Spaniard, as passionate
as an Italian, as cold at heart and calculating as an Irishman, honest,
simple, and kindly as the German of the good old fairy tales, yet, in
their wrath, as brutal as the Tartars from whom they spring, and, in
revenge, as cunning and implacable as a Jew, capable in one and the
same person of superb devotion and repellent treachery, dreamers and
idealists, yet with a terrible gift of clear vision, especially with
regard to themselves, in the highest examples of the race the body
all fire and the brain all light, the inheritors of a language the
most flexible, persuasive, and harmonious ever moulded by the lips
of man--how could I do justice to them? There is no need to fear for
Russia. When, in the words of Shelley’s famous chorus, the world’s
great age begins anew and the golden years return, Russia, made alive
in every part of her by the struggle for freedom, is sure to take a
giant’s share in the building up again of our shattered universe.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The author is not yet aware of the fact, that, though there was
a lucky misunderstanding, there was also a campaign led by a member
of the Society of Friends, to secure his release. This Friend, who
is still unknown to him, secured the interest, first of our Foreign
Office, and then of the Moscow Soviet, in his behalf, and made his
escape possible.
APPENDIX WHAT BOLSHEVISM MEANS
We have read so much in the last day or two about Bolshevism being
established in Europe, that it is worth while inquiring how it really
works. The accounts of it that have as yet appeared, speak only of the
murders and robberies. I wish in this article to ignore their bloodshed
and simply to state what the Bolsheviks’ ideals are, and what is the
result when these ideals are put into practice.
Bolshevism is a term which may be translated as “Maximalism.” The
Bolsheviks demand the maximum of Socialism, are the Socialists
“whole hoggers.” They start from the theory that the middle classes
are incapable of rule, and that only two classes can govern the
country--the capitalists or the workmen. Since it has to be one of
the two, they are determined it shall be the workmen. Their watchword
is not freedom for all, but the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, the
tyranny of one class of society above all the others.
Their organ of government is the Soviet. Lenin boasts that the day of
Parliaments has passed, and that he has discovered something better,
which will take their place all over the world. A Soviet is simply a
Council. Its constituencies are the various Trades Unions, who elect
members in proportion to their numbers. The Soviet in turn appoints
Commissars who correspond to our Ministers of State. Exactly how the
Commissars are all made to go in the same direction I do not know.
Lenin spent a good deal of time last year in writing articles to prove
that a President was as useless as a King, and that no formal head of
a Government is necessary. From what I have heard, the absence of a
formal head only leads to a series of intrigues between conflicting
parties, which very much hamper government while they continue, and
generally result in some dominant personality attaining the leadership
and filling up the chief posts with creatures of his own.
The franchise, which is supposed to include all those who work for
their living, is a shamelessly artificial one. To take but one
instance. In Irkutsk the Bolsheviks found themselves in a minority
in the Soviet. They thereupon declared that the franchise must be
changed, it was too bourgeois. They succeeded in carrying through a new
principle--that the franchise should belong to “physical labour” only.
All such occupations as demanded education were ruled out. Some of the
more enlightened Bolsheviks tried to obtain the vote for elementary
school-teachers, but they were shouted down. Similar gerrymandering
has taken place in every part of Russia. There is another peculiarity
about the Soviets. They are elected by physical labour; but who
controls them? In no case members of the working-classes. Lenin’s
principle is that the working-man is too stupid to know what is good
for him, and he must be told what to do. Soviet rule is a system by
which a handful of political adventurers first impose themselves on a
party and then impose this party on the State.
[SN: A TYRANNY]
Bolshevism is a tyranny, and like all other tyrannies has great need
of secrecy. Do not let any English readers run away with the idea
that because Lenin published the secret agreements of Kerenski, he is
therefore an enemy of secret diplomacy himself. He concluded the treaty
of Brest-Litovsk with Germany, and the Russian people to this day do
not know all that it pledged them to. At Irkutsk reporters had no right
to be present at the debates of the Soviet, and such reports as did
appear were officially prepared and often issued a month late. At that
time Irkutsk was on the verge of starvation, and it was necessary to
put heart in the people with a promise of plenty. So from time to time
the Soviet officially stated that they had reached an agreement with
China by which the frontier was to be opened. These statements were
deliberate untruths. In a Parliament it would have been possible to
force a debate on this point and make the Government explain why the
frontier was still closed and declare its policy. In view of the fact
that the Union of Democratic Control, the _Manchester Guardian_, Lee
Smith, and others of that kidney have been such staunch supporters of
the Bolsheviks, it is extremely important to realize that under Soviet
rule there is no democratic control at all, and worse secrecy than
there ever was under the Czar.
To turn to commerce and finance. The Bolsheviks call themselves
Communists, and aim at the abolition of private property. Land may
neither be bought nor sold. When you die all your property goes to the
State, and while you are alive the State may take from you what it
pleases. Nothing is yours; all is the State’s. The effete Parliaments
of the West generally estimate their expenditure for the coming year,
and plan their taxation accordingly. Not so the Soviet. They do indeed
levy taxes, but they are always in want of money. Their plan is simple;
they go to the nearest rich man, and “touch” him for the amount. From
one man alone at Irkutsk they had obtained £15,000 in three months.
In many towns they had bled the rich white, and were beginning on the
middle classes. Whatever they wanted, they took--houses, furniture,
cattle, horses, motor-cars--without any compensation. If you were
ruined, you were brutally told to go and work with your hands. In one
town, where they took a house with all that was in it, the lady had
just got in a stock of underclothing for the summer. Not conceiving
what use these things could be to the Soviet, she petitioned that they
might be handed over to her. She was told that it was impossible, as
the articles in question had already been “nationalized.”
[SN: EVERYTHING NATIONALIZED]
Everything was nationalized. It began with the banks. You could get
money to pay your workmen with, but if you wanted it for anything else
you needed the licence of the Soviet. You became the slave of the
Soviet, and could spend nothing except as they directed you. This power
was mercilessly used to crush opponents. All mines and factories were
nationalized and passed completely into the control of the working-man.
They lived on the capital of the firm, gave themselves high wages, and
did no work. Most of the undertakings had to be closed, and I did not
hear that the working-men made a success of it in a single case. And
they were far greedier than the capitalist. One Petrograd factory was
making overshoes at a price to themselves of four roubles a pair. They
put them on the market at forty-five roubles a pair. At the Cheremhovo
coal-mines the miners voted themselves fifty roubles a day--whether
they worked or not. As a result, all those public services which
depended on Cheremhovo coal either showed a great deficit or had to
put their prices up, while private enterprises dependent on Cheremhovo
coal could not continue. Munition factories, after peace was signed,
simply refused to be shut down. They insisted on orders being given
them to keep them at work. Where will you find things as bad as this in
the worst days of Capitalism?
To come to the Land Question. The Bolshevik formula is, “No one is to
receive less than is sufficient to support a man and his family or
more than a man and his family can cultivate.” It puts a damper on all
enterprise, sets the man of ambition and ability on the same level with
the lazy and the stupid, and makes of the farmer a mere grubber of the
soil. The Bolsheviks boast of having collected and distributed a large
amount of agricultural machinery. But they have “collected” it from
the rich farmers, who knew how to use it, and distributed it among the
ignorant peasants who understand nothing about it at all. They have
driven away the intelligent and educated men who were the backbone of
Russian agriculture and in their place have put men who will not be
able to get out of the land a quarter of what their predecessors did.
The peasants are not grateful, but hate them intensely. The peasant
wants to own his bit of land, he wants to be free to develop it, and he
dearly loves the joy of battling with a dealer for a good price for his
crops. None of these things are possible under the Socialists.
[SN: EDUCATION AND LAW]
We come to Education. Here they have persecuted the teachers who would
not acknowledge their power, and put them on the street to starve. In
some Siberian towns they have declared that education makes people
bourgeois, and that, therefore, all schooling must cease at the age of
sixteen. At Vladivostok they are openly inciting their supporters to
murder all students and professors. Everybody knows that if they were
returned to power in Vladivostok not a single member of the Oriental
Institute would be left alive. At the same time they are trying to
make the stage and the cinematograph organs of Bolshevism. No play and
no film is to be allowed that is not Bolshevistic in tendency. It is
true that at Irkutsk they used to give “evenings” at cheap prices with
the idea of providing the people with good intellectual fare. Mozart,
Molière, and the classic Russians used to figure on the programme.
But all they have done has been too one-sided and special. Education
demands freedom, and that is the one thing they will not give.
One of the strangest Bolshevik novelties was their reform of judicial
procedure. Laws, lawyers, and judges were abolished at one blow. You
might be prosecuted for treason. Your judges would be chosen from the
people to officiate for this occasion only, perhaps even they would
not be able to read or write. The prosecuting counsel would be a man
of the same type. You instructed whoever you liked to appear for you.
The court had to make law and find on the fact at the same time. Having
established what you had done, they would proceed to deliberate as to
whether it came within their idea of a crime. The public were invited
to help them, and any one who chose might speak as long as he liked.
Even schoolboys joined in. The proceedings were not so terrible for
the defendant as might appear. He usually got a real lawyer to defend
him, who could put his case skilfully. The representative of the Soviet
was no match for him as a rule. Judges were lenient except to other
Socialists and the Press. You were not always certain of being tried.
The Bolsheviks would arrest a group of people on a charge of conspiracy
and shoot them the same day. The absence of laws hit the Press very
hard. All the organs obnoxious to the Bolsheviks were suppressed one by
one. It was only too easy to convict a newspaper of sedition, if you
made up the law on the subject afresh for each case.
[SN: THE ROCK OF DESTRUCTION]
These are just a few aspects of Bolshevik rule. In conclusion, I should
like to give a concrete instance of how extreme Socialism works. A
professional man at Irkutsk had by his talents and industry attained
a distinguished position. Come the Bolsheviks, commandeer nearly all
his rooms, and threaten to turn him out on the street and supplant
him by one of their own men. When he protests, they jeer and tell
him he will still be able to work with his hands. That was not the
worst. He had a wife and family, for whom he had saved some money.
If he died, the Bolsheviks would immediately step in and take all he
possessed, including even the insurance. His wife might get some sort
of a pension; his daughters would have to stop going to school and
become servants or waitresses; his son, perhaps, would also have to
give up his education and might manage to get a job as a cab-driver.
The Socialist says how splendid! The children of rich and poor on an
equality at last! Yes, the lazy and extravagant placed on exactly the
same level as the industrious and the thrifty. Whether you spend what
you earn, or whether you save it, it is all the same for those who come
after you. On this rock the artificial restrictions of Bolshevism are
sure to split. You will never persuade a man that the State will look
after those dear to him as well as he himself can. You cannot take from
him the right of providing with the fruits of his labour for wife and
child. He will resent, with the deepest and bitterest anger of which he
is capable, any endeavour to rob him of these privileges, and to make
the State sole arbiter of the destiny of his children.
INDEX
All Souls’ Day, 147
Alsatians, 39, 40, 51, 86
American motor vans for Russia, 114;
Y.M.C.A., 203
Anarchists, 192-195, 225, 227, 228
Angara, 210
Austrian army, 64;
doctors, 145, 153;
prisoners adopt Bolshevism, 223, 224, 232;
Red Cross, 153
Austrians, 75, 76, 77, 177;
hatred of, by Germans, 101, 103, 223
Baikal, 119
Bolshevism, early outrages of, 193-195;
propaganda, 199, 200;
among prisoners, 227;
equality in the army, 211, 212, 225, 229;
and Germany, 201-203, 208, 229;
and German prisoners, 222, 223;
at Irkutsk, 204, 205, 207-215;
and Socialism, 216, 217, 219, 242;
and Capitalism, 230;
and land question, 240;
and education, 241;
and nationalization, 239;
and Courts of Justice, 241, 242;
and professional classes, 242, 243;
origin of, 219;
methods of, 220, 222;
conspiracies against, 221;
what it means, Appendix;
and the press, 229, 242
Brest-Litovsk, 237
Brigands, 233
Brusiloff, 199
Buriats, 156
Chinese frontier, 156, 159;
trade, 196
Cholm, 79, 80, 81
Christmas in Siberia, 146
Cossacks, 66, 68, 97, 99, 120, 158, 159, 211-213
Crown Prince, 6, 9
Czar, 185, 189, 211, 216
Czecho-Slovaks, 226
Duma, 191
England, trade of, 29, 33-35;
popularity of, in Siberia, 196, 197;
propaganda against Siberia, 201-203, 229
English army, 67;
treatment of, in Germany, Chapter III.
German character, 177, 181, 183;
press, 15, 20, 24-26;
fleet, 21-23;
treatment of prisoners, 69-71, 86;
working-men, 179, 180;
propaganda in Siberia, 171, 197-202, 229;
Red Cross, 65, 135, 178;
infantry, 62;
artillery, 63;
army exemptions, 38;
army, food in, 40, 49;
army barracks, 49,
army hospital, 42;
army training, 43-47, 50, 51, 55;
army songs, 52;
army equipment, 71, 72;
army in Belgium, 57, 58;
army in France, 59, 60;
army in Russia, 61-63;
army, plunder of, 85;
army brutality, 85;
army, theft in, 121-124;
army, promotion in, 88;
army, Socialism in, 121, 226-227;
army doctors, 143, 144, 148;
army prison outfit for Siberia, 137
Germany, desire for peace, 11;
strategic railways, 12
Greeks, 174
Grey, Sir Edward, 21
Hague Conference, 6, 7
Henderson, 203, 204
Henneken, Frau von, 150, 178
Hindenburg, 24, 63, 68, 76
Hungarians, 78, 175, 223
Irkutsk, 187;
Len demonstration at, 191;
criminals at, 192;
emissary from Lenin to, 199;
first Bolshevik outbreak at, 204, 205;
bombardment of, 210-215;
white house at, 210, 211;
children’s hospital at, 213;
arming of prisoners at, 225;
British Consul at, 231;
Soviet at, 236, 237
Japan, 8, 196, 201
Jews, 96, 100, 108, 109, 116, 141, 143, 147, 166, 178, 183
Joffre, 60
Kaiser, toast of, 4;
unpopularity of, 9;
and the war, 10, 14;
brother of, 25;
sons of, 25;
sister of, 25
Kerenski, 201, 202, 208;
Revolution, 186-192, 195
Korniloff, 202
Lenin, 199, 204, 235, 236, 237
Liége, 56
_Lusitania_, 41
Masurian Lakes, 23, 61, 62
Militarism, Chapter I.
Morocco crisis, 9, 10
Moscow, 116, 117
Oskar, Prince, 4, 5, 6, 7
Patlych, 216, 217
Poles, 186, 187
Prisoners’ associations, 222-226
Red Cross, Austrian, 153;
German, 65, 135, 178;
Russian, 113, 141, 148;
Swedish, 136, 139
Red Guards, 210, 216
Russia and Germany, 9;
before Revolution, 168;
economic difficulties of, 195
Russian State, venality of, 160, 162-168;
army, 111, 112, 171-173;
army training, 51;
army officers, 155, 161, 162, 172, 185;
army and Revolution, 186-188;
artillery, 66;
treatment of prisoners, 95-99, Chapter VI.;
character, 123, 155-158, 218;
peasants, 106-108;
doctors, 139, 144, 148;
Red Cross, 113, 141, 148
Siberia, journey to, 124;
criminals in, 192;
barrack life in, Chapters VII., VIII.;
attempts to escape from, 156-159;
food rations, 162;
camp officials, 161, 165, 168;
amusement for prisoners, 177;
parcels, 167;
seasons of, 169, 170;
commercial importance of, 198;
revolution in, 189;
pro-Germanism in, 228, 229
Soldiers’ Councils, 219, 220
Soviet, 231, 232, 237
Spies, Chapter II., 182, 183, 184
Strendberg, 208
Stretensk, 150, 156, 187, 188, 223, 232
Tartars, 175
Turks, 144, 145, 173, 175
Typhus, 129-131, 138-149
Tyrolese, 77
Vermin, 125
Vladivostok, 233, 241
Yellow influence, 196
Y.M.C.A., 81, 203
Younkers, 192, 205, 210, 213, 214, 217
Ypres, 64
Zorn, 6, 7, 8
THE END
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES,
ENGLAND.
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
The single footnotes has been moved to the end of its chapter and
relabeled.
Page header text on each odd-numbered page has been shown as a sidenote
and moved to an appropriate paragraph break.
Punctuation has been made consistent.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in
the original publication, except that obvious typographical errors have
been corrected.
End of Project Gutenberg's Boche and Bolshevik, by Hereward T. Price