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SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
SKETCHES
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
WHOLE CLOTH AND PATCHES
BY
JOHN VARNEY
NICHOLAS L. BROWN
NEW YORK
MCMXX
GRAD
DK
265
,118
1920
COPYRIGHT, 1920
BY
NICHOLAS L. BROWN
All Rights Reserved
TO RANDOLPH BOURNE
Brave American,
Lover of our country!
Throbbing with its best and developed traditions of
liberty;
Carrying liberty's torch to the innermost recesses of the
caverns of selfhood,
And discovering in advance of thy kinsmen
The secrets of the free society of the future;
We salute thee now!
You saw with quick and bated emotion
The faint light of the first beacon signal
For a new fight for freedom — for freedom too pure to
bear adjective dilutions -
On that hill far away,
Where thy frail body could hardly carry thee,
But where thy mind and all thy quick pure spirit rushed
to be;
In the land of hope and regeneration -
Russia, the despised; hated for its youth
By all the old tyrants, Things-as-They-Are;
As, in a measure — calling thee small and un-
American
They hated and hounded thee —
Even to thy Death!
CONTENTS
PART ONE: PATCHES
INTRODUCTORY, 11
STERILITY, 17
ENTERING A New Russia, 25
KAZAN: SUMMER OF 1918, 36
Wood FLAME:
An Imaginary Story of the Volga River, 43
COUNTER-REVOLUTION, 68
SMASHING THE LINES:
An Account, Largely Imaginary, of Bi-organization
Activity, 85
SUNLESS KOLA, 101
John BULL IN North Russia, 119
WHAT THE ALLIES ACCOMPLISHED IN NORTH RUSSIA, 126
HONEY Lou:
An Imaginary Adventure Among the Lapps, 133
RUSSIAN NEW-MINDEDNESS, 152
TAVARISH: A POEM, 165
PART TWO: WHOLE CLOTH
WHOLE CLOTH:
A Dialogue on Political Realism, 171
INTRODUCTORY.
INTRODUCTORY
0
In this book are collected stray writings based
upon experiences of the author in Russia from April,
1918, to March, 1919. Experiences of a common
American in very ordinary service with the Y. M. C.
A.; Russia, however, being what she was at that time,
they were uncommon experiences.
If no central thread appears at first in these nar-
ratives, the incompleteness and inchoateness of the
phenomena observed by the author must be the ex-
cuse. Although he cannot dogmatize about Russia,
he can suggest; and so far as the suggestive and im-
pressionistic method is of value, definite images and
ideas may emerge for the reader from the writer's
piece-meal sketches, when taken together.
The dialogue, Whole Cloth, was written in its first
draft and with most of its array of ideas, in Sweden
and Norway during September and October, 1918,
before the armistice, when the writer was traveling
from Soviet parts into anti-Soviet parts of Russia.
This fact accounts for a certain war-time flavor in it.
The short pieces, or patches, have been written at
different periods from the time the writer first ar-
rived in Russia to the present day.
While the dialogue and three of the short sketches,
Wood Flame, Smashing the Lines, and Honey Lou,
are based upon actual experiences, their characters
12
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
are imaginary and do not express, specifically, the
ideas of the writer or of other persons.
The title, Sketches of Soviet Russia, may seem non-
inclusive to those who believe that the anti-Soviet
governments of Murmansk and Archangel were a
serious menace to the propagation and development
of the Soviet principle in Russia. The writer be-
lieves that the unfortunate intervention of the Allies
in North Russia only helped the Soviet principle to
grow to harvest time; that the governments they set
up were just anti-Soviet; negative, colorless, un-
principled — only a phase of the constructive, active
force of Sovietism.
Since the various sketches of this book are in the
nature of excerpts from a literary diary, it may not
be out of place for the author to explain so much of
himself as will account for the war-time prejudices
with which he entered upon his days in Russia. Ac-
cordingly, a review of the writer's American diary
for the few months preceding his departure for Rus-
sia is given in a few pages immediately following.
In a special margined wide column of the Boston
Herald of April 3, 1917, I read President Wilson's
Call to War with Germany. The crisp, moral-heavy
passages dug deep into my feelings. I had been
pretty strong against this war on an instinct. But
that trenchant morning I discovered I was no Paci-
fist. Wilson said something within that wide mar-
gin about America and Americans that touched ex-
plosive matter way down. I finally became moved to
a point almost to enlist that very morning. Law
INTRODUCTORY
13
School was just a library of decisions for dead men
on dead causes; War — of that wide-margined sort
- was law-giving of the Mosaic sort, being brought
down from God Himself! So deep consciousness of
country, hymn-emotion, and Mosaic Wilson had their
spell over me. My friends and fellow students at
law school fell under a similar spell, I suppose —
but whether it was just such a spell, I cannot be
positive — and their instinct led them to enlist at
once, that is, to go at once to a training camp for
officers. As that day wore on, my own old inform-
ing instinct prevailed: I did not enlist.
On the day war was declared, Professor Wam-
baugh at the end of his lecture referred with tears
in his eyes to Lincoln's call for volunteers in '61.
I conceded the professor's right to draw the analogy,
and I conceded that, in falling subject to the spell
of his warm words, the students paid a tribute to
those noble strains in all of us, way down, that can
always be appealed to on occasion; but, as for my-
self, I remained outside the range of the spell; the
sudden abatement of that first rise of the war fever
in me after impact with Wilson's fine words, left me
for month after month uninfected by the war en-
thusiasm of my fellow Americans about me.
That swift judgment on the library of decisions
for dead men on dead causes, once pronounced, re-
mained binding; and it was difficult to retain enough
interest in law lectures to insure the passing of the
June examinations. The problems of the war and
of patriotism, taking daily new angles, puzzled my
14
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
mind probably more in Cambridge than they would
have done had I gone to a camp —- done something.
But why dodge the intellectual problems of the war?
They would have to be faced sometime, if I was to
keep respect for my own mind. The obstinacy of
my mind, however, did not lead me out on any bright
and shining clear path; it did not lead me to any
field of martyrdom. To evade the draft law in any
fashion, never seriously entered my head. The posi-
tion of the conscientious objector against all war
seemed as unreal as the position of the mass of the
people toward this war to end war. Neither was
the growth of my dissenting opinions about the war
accompanied by the zest of reality; the pragmatic
value of these opinions was doubtful; they were like
unstated faiths — faiths too new to have any lan-
guage by which they could pass current among the
believers of them; they could not be propagated; the
officers of government needed to have no fear that
war-faiths in such a crude state of development as
mine were, could be preached.
For us who were such isolated believers, set adrift
in an uncharted sea, one spokesman, Randolph
Bourne, was then writing, straight out with a con-
viction of right and of correct patriotism, in the
Seven Arts Magazine of blessed memory. Soon this
magazine had to disappear; it was the last light to
go out -- leaving darkness to reign — except for
the phosphorescent New Republic.
With the progress of darkness here, was con-
trasted the progress of light on another shore — in
INTRODUCTORY
15
Russia. Adrift on the uncharted sea — I was
driven by strong instinct to the light. The only ship
I could find to carry me thither was one sent by the
Y. M. C. A. I may be thought a hypocrite to have
sailed under Y. M. C. A. colors, but certainly I was
less a hypocrite to go to Russia for the Y. M. C. A.
than to go to France for the Y. M. C. A. I was still
less a hypocrite than to have waited in America in
my slough of despair until in the course of events
conscripted for a clerkship in Washington; that
would have been a sort of martyrdom!
The banners of the Proletariat had just been
raised in Russia. What did that mean? In think-
ing about what that might mean, zest once more
took up her residence in my mind; Russia might
bring me into reality again. Whether it did or not,
you, reader, must judge from the assorted interpreta-
tions of Russia in the following pages. At least
from this preface you will learn the state of mind
of the author when he left America to go there. As
further evidence of his state of mind, as illustration
of a documentary sort, he appends the major part
of an article, entitled “Sterility," written by him in
September, 1917.
In a note to the heads of all belligerent peoples, on
August 1, 1917, the Pope made several concrete sug-
gestions for peace: The simultaneous and reciprocal
diminution of armaments; the recognition of the true
liberty and community of the seas; the settlement
of territorial questions by all parties in a concilia-
tory spirit. On August 27th, President Wilson re-
16
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
plying to the Pope's note declared that any parley
with the ambitious and intriguing rulers of Germany
could lead to no peace based on the faith of all the
peoples involved. There was included a statement
that “punitive damages, the dismemberment of em-
pires, the establishment of selfish and exclusive eco-
nomic leagues, we deem inexpedient." And curiously
it was argued that to follow the Pope's plan would,
by strengthening the German Government, result in
abandoning new-born Russia to certain counter revo-
lution.
This little article “ Sterility," with the President's
reply to the Pope as a text, sets forth some of the
observations of the author on the complexion of
American war-thought of a given week. The article
betrays the formation of vaguely-felt, yet confident,
heterodox opinion. It is printed so that it may
conveniently be skipped by the orthodox and by those
impatient with groping, tentative opinion.
July, 1920.
STERILITY
The President's reply to the Pope's peace note is a
ringing, definite utterance. With the crashing of war
thunder and the flashing of merciful lightning a Jove
speaks. One man among the welter of an apparently
individual-less world-mob, Mr. Wilson, has seen the
light. Moses has come down out of Sinai. To judg-
ment in the court of the nations, at last has come a
Daniel. The Central Powers are declared the guilty
party. The Allies shall have their pound of flesh.
But, of course, they will be generous. France will not
take Alsace-Lorraine, Italy will not take the half-Italian
cities on the Adriatic, England will give up her two-
power naval standard and accept Germany as an equal.
But that the Central Empires will not be dismembered
is only by grace of a mercy that tempers judgment.
The Allies must nominally have the pound of flesh.
That is the law. That is right. That is just.
To the President the question of innocence and of guilt
is of colossal simplicity; to certain other Americans it
has seemed, and still seems, infinitely complex. To the
President the issue is moral; to these other Americans
there is no grand issue; rather we witness, it appears to
them, the pitting of great non-individual, evolutionary
forces over against one another. The moralist, dealing
with absolutes, finds his intelligence sufficient for the
day. The evolutionist expects intelligence in dealing
with the present events to be sufficient only in the
studies of the best historical minds of the years to come.
The note harks back to the first principles of state-
ments made by the Allied governments at the time. con-
siderably less than a year ago, when Wilson requested
17
ar ago, whents at iples of scome
18
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
the peace terms of all belligerents. The French said
that Wilson in making that request was a foolish idealist.
English comment was: “What can America have to
say when the issues have been so clearly defined by the
various Premiers of the Entente Powers?” Mr. Wil-
son had called the attention of the warring statesmen to
the fact that on each side they professed the same
objects: desired to make secure the rights of weak
states and to provide against the recurrence of wars like
the present one. The irritation of the Allies — namely
the irritation of London and Paris — at this, had its
vent in the formal reply by the Entente, which intimated
that Wilson had made an assimilation between the two
public declarations by the Central Powers, is,” the
formal reply read, “ in direct opposition to the evidence,
both as regards responsibility for the past, and as con-
cerns guarantees for the future.” The Entente was in
this way acting as judge of the evidence in its own
case. In the reply to the Pope, the President brushes
aside the question of evidence, altogether. The wicked-
ness of the Central Powers is held to be self-evident.
So nations in the past have always judged the evidence
of national culpability. All is fair in war, so they have
said. Then why is there in this war an attempt of each
party to make out a case for itself? Because the pres-
sure of the present cataclysm is forcing the thinking men
of every nation to utter something, even though that
something partakes, in its general tenor, of the nature
of the old irrationalities. The utterance of the Presi-
dent does so partake, we fear.
The New York Times reports, as reported, that there
are “circles of opinion abroad in which the President
is regarded as more firmly set on the continuance of the
war than any other national leader, in consequence of
his reply to the Pope.” Certainly his words must
greatly please the imperialistic sections of the Entente.
STERILITY
19
The Manchester Guardian and what may be termed the
right wing of English Radicals, seem greatly pleased
with that part of the Wilson document dealing with
“punitive damages ”; “ dismemberment of empires”;
“establishment of selfish and exclusive economic
leagues.” While, then, the imperialists applaud the
document because they shrewdly estimate that the effect
of such a peace-technique is to prolong the war till the
knock-out blow, the English liberals applaud the splen-
did paragraph of ideals. This paragraph links this last
note to the earlier Wilson notes.
The boldness of the Presidential Bull against exclusive
economic leagues is a stroke. It is the progressive part
of this particular Wilson document and future reference
may for this reason set it apart from the other papers.
When the President last December (1916) asked the
belligerents to state their terms of peace, his note had a
queer dash — something like innuendo. He spoke of
us as a neutral nation “whose interests have been most
seriously affected by the war and whose concern for its
conclusion arises out of a manifest necessity to determine
how best to safeguard those interests if the war is to
continue.” Mr. Lansing, the President's Secretary of
State, issued the following statement the next day:“We
are drawing nearer the verge of war and therefore are
entitled to know what each belligerent seeks, in order
that we may regulate our conduct in the future.” This
interpretation of the President's ambiguity didn't quite
reflect the executive mind and was, therefore, the same
day amended The final presidential pronouncement was
that we were not contemplating war. Probably we werc
not. The “we” as expressed in the national election,
one month previous, certainly was not contemplating
war.
So now, again, on occasion of the reply to the Pope,
one in authority, as the Associated Press puts it, has
broken the force of the President's words regarding
20
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
e inningar.
exclusive economic leagues. The President was not re-
ferring thus to the Paris Inter-Allied Economic Confer-
ence, but to aggressive economic leagues that would be
made necessary if the Pope's plan were acted upon.
In commenting upon this part of the paper the Paris
papers reached harmony with Mr. Wilson by contending
that the economic league proposed by the Paris confer-
ence was for defense only.
So the merry game of logomachy in our thinking and
of reality in our warfare continues. We grow not more
powerful but more powerless, it seems, to say the magic
word that will recall the inhuman forces of carnage
let loose by awkward, second-rate world-rulers. This
impotency of those in high authority to deal with the
horror of the present actuality the President has him-
self stated well in the first of his international notes:
“If the contest must continue to proceed toward unde-
fined ends by slow attrition until the one group of
belligerents or the other is exhausted; if millions after
millions of human lives must continue to be offered up
until on the one side or the other there are no more to
offer; if resentments must be kindled that can never cool
and despairs engendered from which there can be no
recovery, hopes of peace and of willing concert of free
peoples will be rendered vain and idle.”
“That only person in high authority amongst all the
peoples of the world who is at liberty to speak out and
hold nothing back” is not only no longer uniquely “at
liberty," but he now appears the one of the Allied
Premiers most inclined to sit tight till Der Tag. The
logic of a Peace without Victory was for another day.
Whatever the value of some of Mr. Wilson's theories,
the effect of this papal reply to the Pope is to prolong
the war. There can be no parley with the Great Cause
of the war is its argument; there may be parley only,
and perhaps, with the innocent German people. Does
the President count on a German revolution at the end?

s
mi..."
STERILITY
21
Has the weather-cock swung at last to this — a war for
German freedom? Is The Day for which we must wait,
the day when the shackles of the German people are
unloosed? We were fighting to make the world safe for
democracy. More specifically we began by fighting for
American rights of neutrality on the seas; we end in
fighting for nothing specific at all. We embrace the
cause of all causes which are anti-Middle-Europe: the
cause of British South Africa, Irredentism, defensive (?)
economic leagues, restoration of Alsace-Lorraine. Yet
all these things were being fought for a year ago when
the candidate who was in favor of being too proud to
fight won his campaign.
May we not almost reach the conclusion that the
reigning statesmen of the war are too old in years and
too old in technique to create platforms that shall be
international! Verily, it is no more difficult for a camel
to go through a needle's eye than for a nationalist states-
man to conceive of an internationalist peace. Ribot has
spoken. Michaelis has spoken. Lloyd-George, Balfour,
and Sir Edward Carson have spoken. Wilson has writ-
ten. To what effect -- all?
During his five years of national leadership Woodrow
Wilson has well written much that has become a fund
for sound thinking on political topics; he has, for ex-
ample, lifted the idea of a League to Enforce Peace
from the level of a society of illuminati to the forum of
world discussion. Moreover, he has achieved large,
progressive measures in the times of peace: the President
piped and Congress danced. And in the six months of
war he has shown a masterful hand in effecting, in the
face of a contentious legislative body, stupendous organ-
ization for war. We may say we hope that his reply to
the Pope may be fruitful in bringing lasting peace.
That it has found Vorwaerts, the German Socialist
newspaper, not unreceptive, proves it not entirely inef-
fective in its aim; though Vorwaerts complains that it
22
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
does not find in the note that spirit of friendliness to
the German people which might have been furnished
by a plain statement that the German people should not
have to suffer at the hands of its enemies. To this com-
plaint an inadequate answer might readily be framed:
that Mr. Wilson had to speak in general terms in his
note in order not to tread on the toes of his confederates.
Though trusting blindly that in some way this last
work of Mr. Wilson will advance real peace, we must,
on the whole, confess to a keen disappointment. We had
hoped the commanding representative of our new world
would show a grasp of new strange principles. We had
hoped that when we heard his voice again, it might give
us a thrill for the encountering of new-found adjust-
ments — such a thrill as we experienced on the morn-
ings when the new burning of heart in Russia was
heralded. Perhaps we are not longer to expect the
new adaptations to be seen by Mr. Wilson. But surely
in the tumultuous breaking up of the old order, which
the present world-pain makes inevitable, some American
eyes will be powerfully penetrating.
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
ENTERING A NEW RUSSIA
There was a hidden perturbation of heart and of
head as we were leaving England in April, 1918, for
a new country, Russia ! — for a country of strange
social monsters with uncertain and inaccurately-
reported habits and disposition. So affected by
the prospects was I, myself, that that last evening
we spent in London, I could not laugh at my room-
mate when he asked me for directions in writing a
will.
From Newcastle we steered a zig-zag course
through submarine territory. German submarines
were watching for English boats off the North Cape
at that time, and, in cases, failing to destroy these,
would, just out of spite, sink little Norwegian fishing
find it excessively cold in those arctic waters, the
reason being that we were following the Gulf Stream
to one of its termini in the neighborhood of Mur-
mansk. Murmansk was our terminus, a Russian
port open the year round, located about 200 miles
east of the Norwegian North Cape, at the inner
extremity of an indentation of the Kola Peninsula,
rather difficult to navigate.
The town of Murmansk, built up with the coming
7
25
26
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
of the railroad just completed, resembled an Amer-
ican western boom-town or one of the new small
cities of Siberia. Most of the structures, excepting
the substantial log government buildings, were low
log shacks, protected in the winter from the cold
by moats and banked walls of close-fibered roots and
tree branches, and by wool stuffed into the cracks
between the logs. The many-houred sun of the
melted the snow and brought the roads to a very
muddy and almost impassable condition. The fol-
lowing winter many Allied troops were quartered in
Murmansk, and it was feared that with the coming
of spring an epidemic would break out which would
over-crowd the new, secluded cemetery on the top of
the hill; but, thanks to the special preventive meas-
ures taken, the soldiers enjoyed excellent health in
this region summer and winter.
We were not surprised on landing at Murmansk at
six o'clock in the evening, to be informed that it was
after hours of work for the wharf porters and that
none could be obtained at any price. Prepared for
something much more resembling an atrocity -- even
pleased at the negligible character of our first Rus-
sian hardship —- we went to work, without grum-
bling, and carried our assorted baggage, heavy and
light, with our own arms and hands from the dock-
side to a freight car four hundred yards distant.
In those first days of Soviet freedom, workmen often
made hours to suit themselves and the public was
damned.
Jara
selva eedom
ENTERING A NEW RUSSIA
27
Murmansk had for many months been kept full of
departing missions and refugees. Almost every
evening a concert was given at the town hall by a
different set of these talented people, among them
artistes of the Petrograd and Moscow opera houses.
Picking their way over the muddy roads and the
railroad tracks, on which stood their private cars,
were to be seen many meticulously garbed French
officers. Members of the American Red Cross Unit
that had been getting out of Roumania through
Russia for five weeks, gave us a certain initiation
into the mysteries of the Russia of that time —the
words which fell from their lips only increased the
mystery, the inexplicable riddle of Russia to me. At
the Y. M. C. A., which was the headquarters of the
Americans in town, we met the American Lieutenant
P- , who became a man of authority to us. Now
I picked up in this headquarters and read with my
back to the Russian stove, an amazing book to be
taken to Russia as American propaganda –- Henry
D. Sedgewick’s “ The New American Type and Other
Essays.” Lieutenant P- was Sedgewick's new
American type, brisk in movement, shoulders slightly
stooped, eyes determined and hawk-like, yet question-
ing; his ideas originating in a business man's highly-
concentrated imagination, ingenious, yet quite fixed
and irrevocable after once taking form. This fellow
a plan to land several thousand American troops at
Murmansk; “ They would become a nucleus ”_ he
proved to us, like a preacher, gesticulating —" for
28
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
a horde of eager Russians, waiting for an oppor-
tunity to fight the Soviets."
Murmansk's was our first Soviet. No red tape
there! No questions, no customs, for us! The
committee in control of local affairs were two sailors
and a fireman, all from one of the unmanned Russian
warships lying idle in the harbor. Two of this
Soviet (committee) had lived in America for a num-
ber of years, and were especially friendly to Amer-
icans. Halsey, the Y. M. C. A. man, said their
administration of affairs was not so bad as it might
be. The bread, all purchased by permit at the
public bakery, was cheap; the flour came from Eng-
land. All the workmen were required to attend
night-school - an instance of their new freedom!
We were deluged at once, of course, with many
wild and miraculous tales of “ progressive ” Russia.
The country was rife with rumors and conjectures.
And it seemed to me, anything might happen in such
a jumping-off place of civilization. Among other
tales, was one most pertinent to us, that a train of
refugees coming to Murmansk was held up by its
engineer till given a bonus by the passengers. We
were more inclined to believe this story when our own
engineer refused to move his train. We were told he
refused because the train crew was not given enough
food. If true, just cause! Passengers were very
careful to carry cnough food for all emergencies.
Why should not those who “worked their passage "
be also insured against starvation? So here was a
story neither picturesquc nor picaresque. Whatever
ENTERING A NEW RUSSIA
29
adjustment was made between “labor” and “labor,"
the train ambled on its way the next morning, only
twelve hours late.
This railroad connecting Murmansk with Petro-
grad had only been completed during the war. The
Russian government had realized the tremendous ad-
vantages of Murmansk as a port open the year round
for trade with England and America — especially at
a time when the war made other Russian ports inac-
cessible. American contractors were intrusted with
the undertaking, and at once one thousand men
were employed, mostly Chinese coolies, work being
begun at both ends simultaneously. The difficulties
were great: the lack of population, the swampy na- .
ture of the ground, the distance from supplies. .
The climate was severe for the Asiatic workmen and
hundreds of them died of the scurvy, a disease to
which people living in that arctic country are sus-
ceptible. When the English occupied this region,
their soldiers were ordered to drink lime juice as a
preventive against this disease. I remember one
pitiable Russian, an exile from the Southland, whom
I saw afflicted with scurvy, and dying a slow death.
I had to tell him there was no way for him to cross
the lines and reach his home — that was during the
time of the military intervention — as he very much
wished to do. He had contracted the disease from
under-nourishment.
The railroad runs from Murmansk to Kandalak-
sha, at the northernmost corner of the White Sea;
to Soroka at the southwest corner; to Petrozavodsk,
30
RUSSIA
.
SKETCHES OF SOVIET a town of 10,000; and to Ivanka, south of Lake
Ladoga, connecting at the latter place with a previ-
ously existing line to Petrograd. The length of the
whole line is 650 miles, built standard-gauge, and
eventually to be double-tracked.
This road was not completed in time to be of great
military value during the war, but in times of
future peace it will develop Russia's exports in
grain, flax, and dairy products from North Russia.
Archangel, the old, and only other, port in the north,
is 400 miles further east, and is blocked up with ice
half the year.
So we began our journey down this railroad —
with destination at an immeasurable distance of both
time and space — judged by our own feelings!
At least we were pretty well insured against star-
vation. We had with foresight purchased a two-
weeks' “ picnic” ration in London, the ship had given
every passenger a generous allowance of food, and
then Halsey had halved his larder with us; besides
all this, we wise ones had laid in a secret supply of
jams and chocolate that was tucked away in the
corners of our trunks and bags.
In order to take all our baggage with us, we
traveled to Moscow in a freight car, hobo-fourth-
class, or to be precise, in a tepluska, which means in
Russian: a freight car with a stove in it. There were
four wide shelves, two on a side, with room in the
center for the stove and wood. At each upper cor-
ner was a sliding window, forty by fifteen inches, and
in the center were sliding doors on each side. Some
ENTERING A NEW RUSSIA
31
of the party thought that others often “hogged "
the view at these advantageous apertures. Packed
in such a traveling carriage were eleven Americans,
an interprcter and two other Russian fellow-officers
of the old army, together with trunks, duffle-bags,
bed-rolls, boxes, and suitcases, in such quantity as
to constitute us plutocrats in that country, no mat-
ter how unkempt the state of our beards. I was
assigned to the steerage deck (a lower shelf) along
with Woody, Beekman, and the Russians. We
under-dogs slept on two trunks, apiece. In this posi-
tion of outcast, I found it some reason to be thankful
that it was on my own trunk that I reposed the half
of me. To be sure, we were offered a seat occasion-
ally on the top shelf, even a seat at times near a port-
hole window, to be accepted, however, in a “by your
leave” spirit. Till our journey's end and a re-
assignment of sleeping-places took place, we not on
the upper shelf remained in our feelings, “ steerage
0
2
(
The stove kept us warm enough. At night, with
my head only four feet away from it, it kept me too
warm. On this stove our meals were irregularly
cooked, and then distributed in scrupulously just por-
tions by the cook and his assistant-for-the-meal, to
each man as he sat in his appointed place.
We stopped at all the stations, several hours' ride
apart, for wood and water for the engine. Most of
the rolling stock of this railroad and the great
Mallet locomotives, fitted to burn wood, came from
America. It made one unhappy to see so much
32
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
precious wood consumed for firing an engine, yet the
point is that the wood is not precious there. Wood
is used as fuel on all railroads of North Russia, large
stocks of wood being piled near the tracks at certain
stations. The passengers help themselves to this
wood, also, to replenish the stoves of their tepluskas.
There was great competition among the members of
our party for the pleasure of splitting our wood
during waits at stations.
At the stations we all alighted to scurry about;
some for wood, some to join the line at the Kypiatok
(hot-water tank), some just to scurry about. We
used the hot water for tea, as did the Russians. Tea
and black bread were all the Russians on the train
seemed to have to live on. At the large station
restaurants the Russians in our tepluska, however,
bought small delicious native birds and other special
Russian food which they delighted to talk about and
share with us.
The inhabitants of this sparsely-settled country
are nearly all employees of the railroad. Many of
them, especially the young men, evidently flocked to
the station to see every train come in; there were
three through trains a week. We saw in the villages
many of the Chinese who had originally been brought
there as road-builders. One wondered what place
they might occupy in the new social regimentation.
At cach station was a group of about fifteen or
twenty log buildings, all new, and surprisingly well-
built and neat; in some places scattered at diffcrent
ENTERING A NEW RUSSIA
33
elevations in a pine grove, they made a good subject
for a canvas.
So were the incisive colors of that country such
as to arouse the passions of an artist. I never
wearied of looking out through the half-open door-
way, or, on rare occasions, through a port-hole win-
dow, at the landscape: olive-green, straight, slender
pines, of man-size only at the Murmansk end; shin-
ing, white mountains; long white lakes that, even
then, nearly May, were still being used as high roads
of ice; sunset colors fading only a brief time before
the first light of very early dawn.
Near Kandalaksha, it was, I think, that we had
to wait a whole night in the fear that if we pro-
ceeded we might be attacked by Finnish bands,
directed by Germans who hoped to break communi-
cations along this road.
At Petrozavodsk we had a delay of six hours which
nearly all the Americans improved for a visit to our
first town of any size. Returning from this inspec-
tion with Bonta, I recall standing on an eminence
overlooking the town and the spreading Lake Onega.
Dominating everything was the pinnacle of the big
church, glittering green in the soft early-afternoon
sunlight, a symbol of Russian community life for
centuries. It has been the materials of the one
church, whether of wood or of brick, or where more
than one, the number of churches, that has deter-
mined the classification of a Russian habitation as
celo, volost, or gorod. The church has stood for
34
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
the life of the people-together. Now, since the revo-
lution, this Russian people-together had taken great
steps. The country over-night had become socialist.
We had been traveling hundreds of miles in a coun-
try where, as a fact, land, buildings, and railroads,
all were common wealth. Yet, undoubtedly, busi-
ness was being carried on. Up there in the latitude
of Alaska we were being carried across swamps and
virgin wild country; in places the train just crawled
as it passed over crooked stretches which even then
were being made straight; a great deal was being
done to raise and straighten the road-bed: somebody
was working. We were proceeding on our journey;
small matter the delays! Now the question upper-
most in my mind was how social life was moving in
Russia. Who and what was the new régime? Was
it representative of the people together, the people
symbolized in the Petrozavodsk church tower, or was
it representative only of a part of the people-
together? Here was the problem with which Russia
confronted me!
In Moscow, where we arrived after an exciting six
days' journey, that problem became at once acute.
We found the city gayly decorated for a May First
celebration held the day before. I inquired about
this celebration. « They had had the biggest parade
the city ever saw," I was informed, “but the enthusi-
asm wasn't genuine; the people aren't really with
the Bolsheviks; the Bolsheviks had to force citizens
to join this parade; there isn't the enthusiasm about
the revolution there was at first; the people are tired
ENTERING A NEW RUSSIA
35
of revolution; they want bread.” Hearing such an
interpretation of the Russian dictatorship of the
proletariat, I began to spcculate about the growth
of minority movements in history. Granted Bolshe-
vism was a minority movement, had it struck a
policy and uttered a battle cry that would draw the
masses to its support ultimately? Were the Bol-
shevik leaders secrs, or were they only blind leaders
of the blind?
The next day I decided they were blind leaders.
I could not go about to see the sights of the city
because all the tram-car workers had declared the
church holiday was to be a complete holiday for
themselves as well as for the rest of the citizenry.
This big, glaring instance of personal discomfort for
me, made me for that day impatient with the dicta-
torship of the proletariat. But that particular sort
of independence on the part of the tram-car em-
ployees did not annoy the citizens of Moscow again;
for the workers, not tram-car employees, were after
all in a majority, and they saw to it that thereafter
the tram-car people reckoned with their duty to the
public as well as with their duty to themselves. In
witnessing this tram-car stoppage and its lessons for
the citizens, I was compelled to realize that I was
in a country of primitive things, where first-starts
and their failures were to discipline a people most
roughly. I gained a belief, too, that the social move-
ment at work in Russia was to involve the whole
people, and that, before it ceased, it was to express
the whole people.
KAZAN: SUMMER OF 1918
It was May 5th, 1918. As the big Volga steam-
ship came to a standstill, Woody and I argued where
we might be; it turned out I was right; we had
arrived at Kazan. The two of us had a Russian cart-
load of baggage; you could not put on one of these
frail Russian carts more than one horse could carry.
We rode ourselves on top of the trunks and bags
three miles, from the preestin (wharves) to the city,
which we could see all the while with its walled Krem-
lin at the top gleaming in the sun. Kazan is a city
of three hundred thousand inhabitants, the capital of
a fertile province of the same name, and one of
Russia's important cities commercially; yet there is
no modern method of moving freight from the river
to its business section.
Kazan was captured from the Tartars in 1552 by
Ivan the Terrible. The Tartar folks have remained
in the city, comprising now probably one-third of
its total population. In the Kremlin stands a high
tower built in the Tartar style, from which the
Mohammedan crescent was removed for a Russian
cross when the city changed hands. At the time the
Bolsheviks came into power, in order to symbolize
the participation of all elements of the population
equally in the government, including even the subju-
gated dark folks, the Tartar Mongolians, the Bol-
36
KAZAN: SUMMER OF 1918
37
sheviks removed the Russian cross from this ancient
tower and restored the Mohammedan crescent. I
was told this story of the tower by one of the en-
raged Russian bourgeoisie. It is easy to distinguish
the Tartars by their Mongolian features ; invariably,
too, the men wear black turban hats. I often visited
the Tartar markets, crowded together in the Tartar
section of the city, and admired their laces, scarves,
caps and shoes, justly renowned for beauty and fine
workmanship.
In the Kremlin, the heart of the city for centuries,
are the treasure-houses of its history. Parts of the
ancient fortress wall were pointed out to me. My
Russian friend who became my guide there had a
mind with an ecclesiastical bent. He informed me
how the earliest and most venerated icons of the
Cathedral Church were brought on foot from Mother
Moscow with the continuous singing of a band of
the faithful. He took me to a shrine beside the
Cathedral Church, a small cell too low for any person
to stand up straight in, where the first bishop of
Kazan spent his latter days, refusing to leave it for
any cause and having bread and water brought to
him there. For such and such similar sanctities, the
man was venerated in life and canonized after death,
In the Kremlin, also, is an old monastery, founded
by the first bishop, I believe. Its long dormitory
faces a garden, and has a view over the Volga valley
for miles, the best view in the city. Here were in-
tellectual monks, I was informed; a schedule of spe-
cial public lectures posted in one of their halls showed
38
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
that, at least, they were interested in current topics
such as the revolution and socialism.
Then, our set sight-seeing being concluded for the
time, we scrambled down the steep, rocky sides of
the Kremlin, symbol of the city's Past, and were con-
fronted, incongruously, with — was it symbolical of
the city's Present? — crowds of Saturday-afternoon
people — peasants in native dress sprinkled showily
among them — walking in the mud about the several
attractions of what they called an Americanski
Circus: clowns, acrobats, side-shows, fakers, and a
merry-go-round. The Russians like such fast-and-
qucerly-moving American Things as these, which ap-
peal magically to a kindred savagery in themselves;
Jack London is another American Thing with such
an appeal. I was told that an American clown had
become the great drawing-card at The Circus, one
of the most popular amusement places of the city.
The city was modernized in essential ways, in the
European if not in the American, sense, except that
there were no scwers. The streets were roughly
paved, generally with cobble stones. All buildings
had electricity; telephones were common, although,
in some parts of the city, unreliable after the revolu-
tion. The public buildings were of simple lines,
substantially constructed, and sometiines quite im-
posing. The buildings of the National Bank were
among the finest in all the Russian cities, the most
notable being that at Nishni Novgorod. The Kazan
branch of this bank held the gold reserve of the
Empire, which was moved away to Siberia by the
7
KAZAN: SUMMER OF 1918
39
Czechs when they captured the city. Among the
best buildings were the high schools, the Technical
High School, of which the American Y. M. C. A.
had the use in the evening, and the Commercial
School.
Kazan University, the third-oldest in the empire,
continued its work in spite of political changes, al-
though its faculty, I was given to understand, were
chiefly Cadets bitterly hostile to the Bolsheviks.
The imperial arms had been removed from the top
of the high columns at the entrance, and the re-
sources of the institution put at the service of a
people's branch of the university. A raise in the
salaries of the professors was voted by the City
Soviet that summer.
Kazan had not been put on food-rations before I
left in July, 1918. This part of the country should
be richly self-sustaining, if the peasants could be
induced to yield up their produce; the people of the
province were expecting, and I understand they had,
a good harvest that August and September. Prices
were high except at coöperative and government
stores, because speculation was quite unrestricted.
A good deal appeared in the Soviet newspapers about
the food-profiteers, but means had not been found at
that time to curb them. Black bread was 25 cents
a pound, white bread 40 cents, butter $1.40, and
cheese and honey about the same. Berries in season
were relatively cheap and plentiful. Fish were easy
to obtain. At the restaurants one could eat a good
meat dinner for 70 cents, and at the Vegetarian
.
40
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
Restaurant, the walls of which were adorned with
photographs and mottoes of Tolstoy, one could
order a meal of three or four courses for 40 cents.
The population did not appear to be saddened by
the war and the revolution, unless one was exclusively
with the upper classes, who, indeed, for the most part
gave themselves over freely to lament, and to fear
worse times. In the shady ill-kept park in the
center of the city one saw children gather daily for
supervised games, and every evening one saw there
well-dressed crowds of young people promenading.
Admittance to the park was obtained only by paying
a small fee, whenever a band concert or a booth-fair
was held there for benefit of some war or charitable
organization. Mordkin, whom I had last seen danc-
ing with Pavlowa in “ Giselle " at the Boston Opera
House, appeared twice on his Volga tour at Kazan
to packed houses and at what seemed prohibitive
prices. The Moscow Art Theater Company, also on
tour, gave a finished performance of Gorki’s “ In the
Depths" at the big City Theater. In the box op-
posite ours sat the President of the Kazan Soviet
with his family and guests.
I was surprised to find the family with which I
lived so little affected by the revolution. The owner
of the house was a famous surgeon, known for his
charitable cases, and on that account allowed to keep
the use of all his rooms. My family living down-
stairs in his house were forced to share their rooms
with me; that is, having to take in somebody to
share their large quarters according to soviet law,
KAZAN: SUMMER OF 1918
41
they were glad to have me. Their furniture and
personal effects, however, were absolutely untouched,
their meals were better than the 70-cent dinners at
the restaurants, and, as luxuries, they had a barrel
of white flour and, secretly, three bottles of wine a
day. In June they went to live at their datcha
(villa) in a summer-village about twenty miles away.
There they could buy fresh vegetables and fish, and
swim every day in the Volga River. The afternoon
I spent visiting them, I sat long on the beach, and
enjoyed watching the vacationists in the water; the
fishermen mending their interminably long nets on the
shore; the fast steamers and the slow freight-boats,
passing; and the wide Russian landscape, given char-
acter by the presence of the mighty river.
My first few nights in the city I heard shooting on
the streets, but after that witnessed no signs of dis-
order. Citizens were organized into a guard for
night-watches. All the automobiles in the city were
in the use of the local soviet, and never have I seen
machines driven along the streets so recklessly. The
ban against beggars had not become a soviet decree
at that time, and at many of the street corners these
ancient pests were stationed. Once in the central
park on my way down-town a troupe of eight beg-
gars, that looked needy enough, actually beset me
behind and before, and when I returned up-town later
I was waylaid by the same band. There was a com-
mittee against Counter-Revolution as in other cities,
and I knew of two of its victims, young ex-officers who
were admittedly plotting the overthrow of the Bol-
42
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
sheviks. There was an election in the city that sum-
mer in which the Bolsheviks led the poll, with the
Left-Social-Revolutionaries second, and Mensheviks
and Right-Social-Revolutionaries far behind; the
non-socialist parties received no votes. Non-Bol-
shevik newspapers sprang up of a night, often openly
counter-revolutionary or anti-government, but were
suppressed after one or two issues.
Conscription for the Red Army began in July. I
heard how one poor prospective recruit was chased
into a river. The levy officers debated whether to
shoot at him as he escaped, but decided on the sug-
gestion of a passerby to let him go. The day I left
the city I saw a group of frightened boys about
twenty years of age being led to army headquarters.
This sort of violence illustrated the real plight of
Russia, however peaceful her cities may have scemed
to a foreign eye on a summer day. Kazan was cap-
tured by the Czechs and anti-Bolsheviks the first of
August and recaptured by the Bolsheviks about a
month later. Very likely my family in the surgeon's
house lived on calmly through changes of government
with their barrel of white flour and their three secret
bottles of wine a day.
WOOD FLAME
AN IMAGINARY STORY OF THE
VOLGA RIVER
The telegram had at last come through from
Jaroslav, being forwarded to me from Kazan, where
I had expected to be all this time! As the messenger
handed it to me, cven before I had scen Maria Ivan-
ovna's name on it, I had a conviction that it was
important. Now a telegram's delay of ten days,
like this, does not matter so much if it is a business
telegram, for in these days when there is little busi-
ness, business may as well move slowly; but telegrams
of Maria Ivanovna are the most important of all;
Maria Ivanovna is the dearest of all my children -
she grows to be like her mother at thirty! This
message of hers was: “ Come home at once the news-
papers will explain why.”
I knew what the newspapers had been saying about
the city of Jaroslav. Since the first reports, when
the telegram had been dispatched, rumor had multi-
plied on rumor. I could not be less apprehensive if
all were verified, for any one rumor or a part of one
was bad enough. The White Guards had taken the
town by a conspiracy, these rumors began. Then
the Red Guards came from the other cities and laid
43
44
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
siege, they took the Volga bridge, they took a section
of the city. There were bloody battles; the priests
defended their bell-towers with mounted guns; bell-
towers and priests toppled together; other public
buildings were destroyed! Then German and Aus-
trian war-prisoners came as a third party to the
destruction; some said, a real third-party, seeking
to capture the city in the name of the Kaiser. Then
we heard that fires were sweeping the place, that
only a third was left standing! Do you wonder that,
caught in Simbirsk and unable to procure permis-
sion to go north, I was turned half madman? For
I am a householder who looks after my property and
my family. In such a time I should be with my
property and my family.
I think this of mine was the last telegram re-
ceived that month in Simbirsk from the North. An
hour after the arrival of the telegram there was a
scattered firing from the guns on the hill; only a
pretense of defense, and the Red Armiests were leav-
ing the town precipitately. At the wharves was a
panic. People tumbling over themselves and their
baggage in their eagerness to embark. Neverthe-
less, I was successful in crowding my way into one
of the first of the departing boats. There was no
question of the official permissions for departure
then. The very man who had refused me a permis-
sion every day for a week past, the debonair young
Commissar of Foreign Affairs, came on board, himself
a fugitive, at Undoree, the first stop beyond Sim-,
WOOD FLAME
45
birsk, and took up a position beside me in third
class.
This was the first time I ever traveled third-class.
My fellow-passengers were a familiar enough sight,
mostly peasants who had gone down the river to get
flour and were now returning with all that the law
would allow. I had known the peasantry since my
boyhood when I had played with the peasant boys on
my grandfather's estate: I had had great respect
for these boys who excelled me in sports ; nevertheless,
I will admit I secretly half begrudged them their
liberation from slavery, which had taken place the
year I was born.
I had chosen as the most ventilated part of this
pack of humanity on the lower floor of the big boat,
the open deck at the stern. Here one was directly
under the heavens: he received sunlight, starlight,
and showers as they came. Showers came twice, and
I was glad of the protection of half the Commissar's
soldier's overcoat. At night, my pillow, a bag of
meal, was shared with four other heads. During
the whole voyage, some one I think was always asleep
up against that bag of meal. I had come away in
such a hurry that I had brought no food with me,
but the Lord provided: as a matter of course, the
Bolshevik and I became guests at meals of a hearty,
stout peasant lady, who seemed always to be nursing
a baby, even when pouring out tea for us. She had
two other children along with her. The bag of
meal was hers; it was her family, the Commissar and
46
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
I, who were pillow-mates. The Commissar had bread
and cheese — the best black bread I ever tasted,
made, he said, by his goreetchnia. He had other
good things prepared by this benefactress, among
which were quantities of sugared cookies, such a
rarity in these days! All these things he drew from
a little plaid bag, in which he seemed to have every
necessary article for a month of traveling.
I don't wonder that his goreetchnia made him
sugar cookies. He won even my temperate heart
soon after the boat steamed away from the hillside
village of Undoree. He was short and thick-set;
his cheeks were full; his lips, large; his face was un-
shaven for several days, and his wavy, brown hair
was uncombed. His eyes were a pale blue and
dreamy. The whole lower part of his face combined
with the eyes to give the impression of a care-free,
light-thoughted son of Adam. He smiled constantly
as he talked in an engaging, slow, somewhat-husky
voice.
In response to the immediate interest I took in
him, he volunteered his own story. It did not con-
cern him to know first my political views. He was
so ingenious about his own, that before our journey
together was finished, I had confided to him just how
bitter a counter-revolutionary I really was. His
name was Nicolai Timofevitch Asakaloff. He was
Ukrainian, his native city being Kieff. When the
war broke out he was assistant-engineer running
locomotives in a Kieff freight-yard. He was com-
mandeered to run supply trains at the front in
WOOD FLAME
tory
Poland, and later, out in several directions from
Minsk. He knew all about locomotives, he said.
He compared American, German, and Russian en-
gines: the Russian were the best on the whole. I can
believe he knows an infinite deal about the locomo-
tive, or will know. He would have continued the
subject all night I suppose but for the intervention
of the nursing peasant -- I was less interested in
engines than he thought, but so eager was his man-
ner of conversation that I could have enjoyed it if
he had chosen a topic even more indifferent - he
talked with his whole body expressively.'
The peasant-mother intervened to invite us to team
I had just watched her, as she went for hot water
with a battered tin kettle, wriggle her way through
groups standing and groups sitting to the kypiatok
in the dark bowels of the boat; there was no other
passage-way than the one she made for herself, in
that seething crowd of fellow-travelers. During her
absence the young Commissar had held her baby with
one hand, with the other gesticulating about his
engines. We all arranged ourselves for tea as if
conditions were more propitious: turned a cramped
leg, and straightened out our clothes; the two little
girls smoothed their laps as if to put napkins on
them as at a children's party. Nicolai Timofevitch
drew out of his plaid bag an extra glass for me; the
peasant family had two glasses, the girls shared one;
the infant had just had refreshment and was about
to enjoy more. The mother gave to all of us some
of her white bread; to Nicolai, the largest portion.
48
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
It seemed to me that Nicolai's black bread with but-
ter and cheese was the finest delicacy I had ever
tasted. Nicolai continued to keep the direction of
the talk. He started our hostess off on a story of
the experience of her husband with farm machinery.
This stalwart woman knew whereof she was talking:
it was easy to gather that she was as much the help-
mate of her man in the field as about the hearth.
As we talked the boat approached Tetjushee.
Suddenly came a shot out of a clear sky across the
stern. The peasant woman crossed herself, thank-
ing God for deliverance; I followed her example;
Nicolai turning to me, smiled, and rushed with nearly
all the others to the landward side of the boat to see
what was happening. The Soviet guard was com-
ing aboard. Everybody pulled out his permission
paper. The soldiers simply looked around at us
down in third class: I could not have chosen a safer
place. I avoided the eyes of the guards, though, I
am sure, there was nothing suspicious about my
appearance. I know how to look the workman;
just a few touches give the disguise: a little pulling-
down of the hat-brim, a little pulling-up of the coat-
collar.
We two prepared ourselves to sleep about dark,
eleven by the new time. The peasant mother and
children had long before settled for the night. It
was soft starlight. The water lapped the sides of
the boat as it steadily forced its path. First and
second-class passengers could be seen now and then
walking around their decks above. Below, with us,
WOOD FLAME
49
most had curled up among their bags to sleep -
there was not room to stretch full-length. A few, in
two different groups, were still talking, the moving
tips of their cigarettes throwing a light that made
their faces appear unreal. Several rafts passed us,
and the boatmen on them were singing their songs I
love. Out of the night came those songs, accompanied
by a splash of oars: songs unearthly, half-lament, ex-
pressing vague beauty — a hope, only a hope of
something good from fate. Nicolai, humming one of
these chants long after the singers were passed by,
put himself to sleep. It was not a cold night as
summer nights on a Volga boat go, but I did not
object when Nicolai had thrown half his purple-gray
soldier's ulster over me. The coat did not seem to
give as much heat as his body, wedged in close to
mine. The general odor from that sleeping mass
around me was not, I suppose, exactly salubrious;
though, to confess the truth, I was not as much
troubled by it as a man of my class should have
been. Besides I was looking up at the stars; it was
them I saw, not the sleeping mass; my head was very
close on the meal-sack to Nicolai's and his breathing
was odorless, just agreeable sound!
The peasant lady awakened me for tea in the
morning by a vigorous tug at the elbow. I am sure
she would have let Nicolai sleep on, if it had been he
who was the sleepy-head. Her partiality for him
was not in words, but evident enough. I did not
mind. She knew I did not mind. Nicolai had al-
ready made many friends in the stern. He had a
50
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
way with these people. It was no great matter to
him, I believe, whether he was third-class or first.
He was third-class now, as was I, because there had
been no other accommodations.
We were drawing near to the landings at Kazan.
By pre-arrangement, our peasant family spread
themselves out to keep our places for us, and Nicolai
and I pressed our way off the boat. It was a relief
to move our big muscles freely again. Stationed
amid the traffickers lining the bridge to the wharf
was a lovely child selling wooden spoons, souvenirs of
Kazan. Just for the chance to talk with her, and
for having nothing to do, I negotiated for a spoon.
Nicolai bought cigarettes, fruit water, and honey in
the comb. As we were standing on the wharf bridge
smoking, of a sudden he pressed my hand gently.
It was an involuntary movement of his, a signal to
a pal - it was years since I had felt such a pres-
sure. I looked in the same direction as he, but was
too late: a young woman had passed and was already
half-hidden by those passing after her to the boat.
Nicolai remarked: “Beautiful large eyes, beauti-
ful!" and without more turned to chat with an ugly
beggar that interested him. In my mind I was seeing
those beautiful large eyes of my daughter Maria
Ivanovna, and the eyes of her mother. Had any
harm befallen my family in Jaroslav?
I had most cause to worry about my son Michail,
a hot-headed young officer, who was sure to have
taken part with the White Guards in the uprising.
To him, if the uprising failed, the Bolsheviks would
7
WOOD FLAME
51
show no mercy. I was ready to believe the worst
tales of Jaroslav. I am not a skeptic as to the
brutality of man toward man. I have witnessed
more than one pogrom against the Jews — in fact,
I once helped to organize a mild one; I have witnessed
the ferocity of strikes, and in the course of one in
1905, barcly escaped assassination; in 1915 and
1916 I was commandant in certain towns of Lith-
uania when they were recaptured from the Germans,
and the complaints brought to me of outrages com-
mitted by our soldiers, though exaggerated to some
extent by those suffering the invasion, should attest
the fact that man can be a beast. My wife insists
I am a pessimist, but, myself, I believe we ought to
be honest with ourselves and admit that we've got
the brute in man to calculate for.
The wharf bells rang for the departure of the
boat; Nicolai took my arm and hurried me back to
our peasant friends; and I ceased to imagine what
beastliness there might be at Jaroslav. There was
a lovely sunset that evening to behold — a sunset
which tinted the clouds to the very zenith. We at
the stern had the benefit of its full glory only briefly
as the boat was following the deep channel across
the river. The slanting rays made resplendent the
white walls and gilded domes of a castle-like monas-
tery, which, half-way up the high bank at a bend in
the river, commanded a wide view. We passed a
whale-shaped island of glittering sandy-shoal. On
the right bank were flat fields of grain; very fertile
I thought - I was glad to see the grain so lush and
52
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
nearly ripe; I am not quite as mean as to wish famine
on the country just to spite the Reds. Beyond
the grain were low wooded hills. In the slanting
rays, the fields were very bright and the woods very
dark. Our boat came nearer than a stone's throw
to the left bank, which rose as a cliff, steep and
rocky, dark and cool.
At this hour the upper deck was crowded as at
no other time during the day with first and second-
class passengers, walking arm-in-arm, after dinner.
Nicolai was watching them as I dreamed the dreams
of sunset. Again that involuntary pressure on my
hand, and again I was too late to catch sight of the
lady's face! She wore a bright yellow sweater. She
was walking alone, swiftly and nonchalantly, for all
the world like my Maria Ivanovna. Nicolai whis-
pered in my ear:“ She looked at me, and I think she
smiled." I looked full into his roguish face and re-
plied, “How could she help it!” which was a little
more than I intended to say. At the same time
there flashed through my mind the idea of my Maria's
liking this fellow. What if he had the fascination
for her he seemed to have for other people! No!
Such a thing couldn't be! As between men, fascina-
tion is a raw, elemental, unrefined matter; but a
woman does not permit herself to show liking for a
man till she has ascertained his secondary social
qualities.
After the sun was down and the cool came on, we
smoked his cigarettes, one after the other, till all
were gone. Then I came to understand why he was
WOOD FLAME
53
a Bolshevik. He told me first how he experienced
the Revolution. The supply system at the front,
which had gone from bad to worse, was reorganized
by committees of the railroad men themselves after
the March Revolution. Nicolai worked upon one of
these committees. He was proud of it! After the
October Revolution he became a Bolshevik with many
of his railroad friends and served on more commit-
tees. He was proud of it! “A poor thing to be
proud of," you say. Perhaps, but you did not see
the sincerity in those pale blue eyes, you did not note
the ringing assertion in his husky voice. If you
had, and if you are a man of any response to the
feelings which move those beside you, you would have
felt as I did, great respect for his feeling of pride.
Nicolai was willing to pay the cost of his prole-
tarian beliefs! When the Czechs took Samara and a
new internal front was created along the Volga, he
hastened to Simbirsk to run supply trains for the
Red Army. As the Czechs advanced, the Soviet,
bearing in mind the fate of the Commissars of Sain-
ara, feared for their lives, and one of them, the
Commissar of Foreign Affairs, “ skipped the town.”
My young engineer took the vacant post, angry with
several who had declined it out of fear. .
Nicolai considered himself lucky to escape alive
from the ugly things that undoubtedly happened at
Simbirsk. As he was fleeing the city, fortunately it
was into the hands of a Czech band that he fell,
rather than into the hands of the local White Guards,
who might have recognized him. The Czechs never
54
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
suspected him of being the Commissar of Foreign
Affairs. Who would! But he was a Bolshevik -
he was running away — so they took from him
everything he had: his watch, all his money, and a
fine new overcoat he had just purchased second-hand
at the officers' coöperative selling society with the
proceeds of his first month's advance salary. He
escaped by his face, which made him a friend in one
of the Czech guards. This Czech connived at
Nicolai's sudden disappearance down a side street.
Then with money hastily borrowed from a friend,
and with a good supply of bread and cheese presented
by his goreetchnia, he set out on foot. Two miles
from the city he hired a peasant to drive him to
Undoree.
Such was the revolutionary history of Nicolai
Timofevitch. I should have expected to find his
Bolshevism just personal history — a narrative Bol-
shevism; but I learned it was argumentative as well.
The Bolsheviks should not have been the only party
for a self-respecting Russian workman to join after
the fall of the monarchy, but so it had seemed to
Nicolai. He tried to show me why. “ The freedom
of the workman is safe only in his own hands," he
said; “ he is not safe to delegate it even to a Con-
stituent Assembly uncontrolled by workmen.” I
listened and did not attempt to refute. Why should
I? That would only have interrupted his flowing
fervor. It was a beautiful whole he pictured; if a
strong man pulled out one pillar, the whole would
have fallen into pieces. As he waxed warm describ-
.
WOOD FLAME
55
ing the corner-stones, “ justice for all ” and “ all
for justice,” his tone had the religious note. I was
awed. I became convinced of the value of his opin-
ions to him; there was that much truth in them. I
was more than tolerant; it would have hurt me to
think his high hopes were all a lie; and I remember
saying once, just to indulge him, “perhaps, after
all, if I were as young as you, or ever, by power of
imagination and faith, had been as young, I might
come to be guilty of holding these harsh opinions."
At seven o'clock we drew up to the Camilot wharf
at Nishni Novgorod, the Bolshevik's present destina-
tion. These large Volga boats are tied up in a
second, but getting ashore, for us at the rear in
third class, was a matter of twenty minutes. One
by one, bag and baggage, the third-class passengers
marched slowly over the gang-plank. As I waited
there in turn — confronted closely with our meal-
sack, now on the peasant mother's back — it struck
me afresh what a patient creature our Russian peas-
ant is! Our peasant companions stood there in line,
weighted down with their precious flour, without a
whimper! The calm and stolidity of nature herself
was in their faces.
To live in that mass of simple people for three
days: to eat, to sleep, to smoke among them was a
quieting experience! It was quieting to be with
them, even in their crowding and confusion: the hot
words which they exchanged often with one another
did not come out of their deeper currents. These
last days on the stern of this boat I had been caught
56
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
S
up in those currents, the worries that had fretted me.
for months became insignificant: I could wait for
time to unfold the truth about Jaroslav, about the
future of my country, about the end of the great
World War; I could wait just as these folks did;
eternity was the present! And sitting there among
them, I breathed deeply, I was at peace with myself.
Or was this frame of mind, in some degree, the
influence of one man, my companion in this unique
travel? Wasn't it that in the presence of this
honest fellow, it was impossible to think hard
thoughts, strained thoughts! Perhaps, though, I
give him qualities he does not deserve, qualities not
recognized in him by those who had known him
longer! I was about to enter into a period of doubt
about him, myself.
As we stood waiting, Nicolai, to beguile the time,
was using his last chance to plumb the naïveté of
the nursing-mother and her girls, but I could see he
was impatient, in contrast to the rest of us, to be
off the boat. Winking slyly, he asked me if I
thought he might recognize on shore the girl of the
yellow sweater! “ But, seriously,” I thought to my-
self,“ he does not intend to look for that girl.
Little good it would do him, if he does!” That he
should be bent on leaving me forthwith as a mere
boat acquaintance, hurt me; but, in face of his
apparent indifference, or thoughtlessness, I was too
proud myself to suggest, as I wished, that we eat
together on the hill at the “ Metropole," my favorite
restaurant in the city — there was time to go there,
WOOD FLAME
57
the boat would not leave for four or five hours. But
so it was, as soon as we were off the boat, he gave
me his remaining bread, gave me one of his cards,
not very clean, and wished me a good journey on to
Jaroslav. “ Better stay away from that town
awhile: it's an uncomfortable place for contra-revolu-
tionaries just now," he said. As he finished speak-
ing, he dashed off and left me in the crowd, very
lonesome. I wanted to dash on after him to see
what he would do. The bread he bequeathed me was
a nuisance to carry. It occurred to me that that
was why he had given it to me.
With the bread under my arm I wandered into the
town. I quickly left behind the dirty region of the
wharfs and made my way through the street gate of
the old Kremlin wall where it reaches furthest down
the hill. Once on the bluff, I had range of the two
rivers, the Volga and the Oka, the shipping, the
ragged lines of the city, and the flat fields across the
Volga. My mood of meanness disappeared.
I love the city of Nishni most, of all Russian cities
except my native Jaroslav and Mother Moscow. I
think I could be content every night to walk among
the gay crowd taking the air in the Nishni Kremlin.
In it are several places to buy drinks, where there is
good music; and at a very small shop is to be had ice
cream of different flavors.
As I strolled in the park, by chance I met my
friend, Alexander Sergeivitch Pianoff. There was
no hesitation; we went directly to “ The Metro-
pole,” though he had already dined at home: Alex-
1
58
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
ander Sergeivitch and I could recall happy hours
spent at that restaurant, when, in our student days,
I visited him in Nishni. Like other such haunts of
mine, the place had changed within a year; it had
lost its savor; the linen was not fresh; the women
were shorn of jewels; the music, even, was without
spirit, or so it scemed. We sat at a small table in
our old corner, into which the brilliant light at the
center of the room penetrated only a little. Alex-
ander Sergeivitch was telling me his troubles, the
typical troubles of a gentleman in these times ; pretty
much an old story! — we are all suffering from the
ravages of the same foe, and I did not attend dil-
igently to all he said.
I was scanning the faces of the diners, when to
my blank astonishment I discovered sitting at a
small table across the room, and chatting like old
acquaintances, Nicolai Timofevitch and — would
you believe it! -- Maria Ivanovna, my daughter
Maria! It was she who wore the yellow sweater,
then; her telegram failing to bring answer, she must
have gone to Kazan herself to find me, and disap-
pointed, she was now returning up the river. But
why was she with the Bolshevik Commissar? Had
he known her all the time? Or was this — no, Maria
would never flirt with an entire stranger! To be
sure Maria was always a venturesome girl, but this
far I never knew her to go. If they had met, where?
But how could my Maria possibly “meet" this fel-
low. He was common; only an empty-headed, glib-
tongucd boy of the streets; a jovial companion to
WOOD FLAME
59
carry along one's fishing-tackle for a day's excur-
sion, but for more — his perpetual grin would
quickly tire one to death! Yes, they must have met
before: he must have rendered her some service in the
past and now she was rewarding him too generously
by giving him a dinner at the best restaurant in
town. Maria is a pure idealist, I know; I have al-
ways been afraid she would take a turn to the anar-
chists. It's her mother she takes after in this lack
of common sense. Certainly not her father! the
nearest I ever came to being a “Red," was a friend-
ship at law school with a youth that a few years later
had to be sent to Siberia. And it was that fellow I
had picked to lead all of us in the eyes of the world;
I used to pride myself on my intuition in this matter,
for it was shared by no one else in the school.
Just which of those troubles of the upper classes
fell to all of us in a period of tyranny, Pianoff was
describing as his, more or less, I did not catch fully:
I kept an eye peeled in the direction of the small
table across the room. He sat with his back to me;
she was mostly hidden from me by a huge palm,
except that her face was clearly visible when, in
gusts of eagerness — a way with her and her mother
— she bent forward and spoke to the Bolshevik. I
did not like to see it, but I was forced by her very
witchery to watch her: I may as well admit that
Maria has always had her way with me; she never
teased for what she wanted ; she had only to look in
her peculiar way. The question came: “ Who is this
that stirs her to appear so at her best and in her
60
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
hi
most bewitching manner!” The answer came to
me, no doubt telepathically from Maria as I watched
her:“ He stirs her, he interests her; for the moment
she forgets why she travels.” Then I observed him.
“ Yes, the very person who made me forget why I
traveled!”
Then I returned to my coffee and Alexander Ser-
geivitch. I smoked one of his cigarettes. I was
listening to dull tales about his wife and son, when
the Bolshevik and Maria arose from the table to
leave. He paid the bill, he tipped the servants:
clearly, the dinner was his. With few words, I made
my apologies to Alexander Sergeivitch for the neces-
sity of an abrupt departure: I had not realized it was
getting so late; it would be serious to miss even one
boat while things were so unsettled; I must insist
that he was not to see me to the boat — his wife
was entertaining guests alone at home already too
long, etc.
I followed them to the park. They walked at the
top of the hill, among the crowd, but not of it.
Other people were looking at them — they were a
vivacious pair, a handsome pair, of about the same
height; but, in all other points a sharp contrast.
But they saw no one; they were busily talking, or
standing at the edge of the path and looking down in
silence.
It was dusk. The sun was down; its light shot
up into a baggy, black cloud hanging over the west;
and, under this, on each side along the horizon, it
made thin clouds resemble delicate pink scarves. To
.
WOOD FLAME
61.
acing joged, jueu cloud har
the east was a sheet of cloud which let down rain in
streaks of light. Below this cloud had just ap-
peared a large, jagged, jug-shaped moon, laced
with thin racing clouds. The water of the river,
wrinkled by the wind and spun with a scarcely-per-
ceptible reflection of sunset pink, was, in the dusk,
the brightest section of the landscape. It was the
time also when the larger city lights were first seen;
and spasmodically over in the direction of the rail-
road station a shooting rocket rose and fell. It was
not all quiet. One of the three war hydroplanes was
still up and just buzzing home to its tent on the
beach at the junction of the rivers. A fleet of war
boats, including one four-stack destroyer, were
screeching the same raucous signal, one after the
other.
He and she stopped to look at this scene, often
for ten minutes at a time. Then they never talked.
At such times they appeared to be strangers to each
other. Then Nicolai would lead her again into the
concourse of promenaders. Her arm was in his, and
once, as they turned from the path of outlook, I
thought that he pressed her hand more than was
necessary to guide her; and that for an instant she
swayed slightly toward him. It made me angry
again. “Where had they met before?"
I followed them down to the Camelot wharf. I
saw them parting. He did not hurry away as he
had from me. After the shaking of hands, he lin-
gered, she lingered. He lost his smile; his grief was
so genuine that I felt ashamed for the ill thoughts
62
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
I had borne him — that I felt restrained from going
over to speak to him. He was moving off ; in a few
moments he would be gone, gone in his smiling flesh,
irrevocably. He went.
“Where did you meet before, Maria ? "
“ Him? We never met before to-day. Our eyes
met yesterday on the boat. His eyes are very bold
and commanding !”
“ Maria!”
“ Father!”
dreamed I should suffer such humiliation."
« Such humiliation? "
66 That you make the acquaintance of this rap-
scallion as if you were a girl of the people!”
“My knight came to claim me. Instantly, I knew
his rank and his honor.”
“So! a romance! You are not the daughter I
thought. You will tell me, perhaps, that you love
the Bolshevik!"
“I do!”
“You — do! He loves you?"
“I wonder!”
“ Then you didn't discuss — ch — love? He
didn't make love to you?”
“ You are silly, father. Whoever discusses love!
Did we look as if we were discussing love? You
saw us !"
“ As I told you, I saw you both together at the
WOOD FLAME
63
restaurant and along the promenade.
I followed
you."
“ You followed us! You were going to shoot him,
I suppose!”
“ I suppose I did think of some such thing."
6 Only you couldn't get a gun anywhere. They
wouldn't let you have a gun, you old counter-revolu-
tionist ! ”
“ You discussed politics with the Bolshevik?"
“Well, I know he is a Bólshevik, a very nice Bol-
shevik!”
“And you don't care that the man you love, is a
Bolshevik?"
PG I do not care what are the politics of the men
I love."
“ The men you love. How many men do you
love? »
“I never count."
“ Your answers are not respectful.”
“ That is not a new complaint against me, father.”
56 No! You see I do not understand you: I have
said that before, haven't I? I am amazed: How can
you love a man in a day!”
“Love a man for a day?"
“ Yes. Put it so: would you love a man for a
day?"
“ You catechize, father. Time isn't the length of
love."
“Well, I will not catechize you. I guess I do not
know much of such things. Your mother might
64
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
teach you a thing or two -- though I am not so sure.
Your mother was the only woman I ever loved - a
life-long love. What is the length of love, Maria ?”
“What is length of fire? Some woods burn longer
than others. Some coals burn longer than others.
oman Coal burns longer than wood. Love lasts longest
where there is most to consume."
“ And how long will your present flame consume
— this boy of the people?"
“Not much longer, father, I fear. This is wood,
not coal. Wood flame has many shapes and many
colors!”
“How? What is the matter with the fellow? I
was just preparing myself to look upon him as son-
in-law. Perhaps I could grow to tolerate him, if
you persisted in your fancy. After a time I would
like him."
“No, you wouldn't! He wouldn't have much
respect for you."
6 Perhaps that is the kind of people I prefer!"
“Gospadeen Asakaloff is not like me, though; his
disrespect might not be like mine. He and I are
as different as the poles.”
“Of course! You think he is an infinitely better
person than yourself.”
“No, he is no better than I. Only he has had
more opportunities."
“Oh, yes, more opportunities ! ”
“ To be a sensible human being."
“ He is very wise, you think.”
- Wise! Not at all. He never had so much more
WOOD FLAME
65
than other people that he had to be prudent."
“He certainly is uncivilized — easily fathomed.
That is why you have tired of him in a day.”
“I tire of him! Ha! It would be he that tired
of me in a day. It is he who is unfathomable. Him
I would never understand in all the days. Father, I
offer you this consolation: I was never picked up by
a man before.”
“I think we might be able to make something of
the chap; if we could bring out the good in him.”
156 Cover over the good!”
“ And civilize him; he would drop his proletarian
theories. When shall we see him again, do you
think? ”
“ Probably never!”
“ Probably never! Hasn't he your address ? "
“ Yes, he asked for it and I gave it. It hurt
me: it was the first formality of the evening!”
“ And what is to prevent you from seeing each
other again?”
“I don't know. Simply, I feel we shall not.”
“ You do not intend to see each other, to corre-
spond!”
“ Just now we intend to see each other for life,
and to correspond when we don't.”
“ You exchanged —?”
“Vows! Nonsense, of course not! He didn't
make love to me, I tell you. That is, it wasn't what
you call making love."
“And you simply let this man slip out of your
reckoning.”
66
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
“ It is a cruel thought!”
“ Come, child! Why imagine such heartless
thoughts? See here, I have his card! I was with
him on the boat coming to Nishni. He isn't just the
sort of man I should cultivate, but if you see some-
thing in him, why then I —”
“Would cultivate him!”
“Yes, I shall invite him to Jaroslav. I shall offer
him good employment there. We will make a man
of him. He shall not go out of our lives."
“Make bright plans, father; but in a month you
will have picked another man for son-in-law. Per-
haps I should have another man picked for myself.”
“Maria, you are content to love this man for a
day?"
“I am not content. But this discontent of to-
night is almost better than content; the uncertainty
and brevity of it --- well, it's unforgetable! It was
a splendid evening we spent. The view from the
Nishni Kremlin was wonderfully beautiful.”
“ The sunset on the Volga last night was also
beautiful.”
“ They said it was fine, but I wasn't interested. I
was reading in my cabin. I don't care to see every
fine sunset."
“But to-night you seemed to enjoy the sunset
so much that you forgot Gaspadeen Asakaloff for a
few minutes. I saw that you both stood and looked
and said nothing: you seemed to be strangers to each
other."
“I did not forget him, but something did come
"WOOD FLAME
67
between us; something terrible and wide; as wide as
the world, and as terribly irresistible as the coming
of another twilight - mysterious and pulsating like
to-night's!”
COUNTER-REVOLUTION
I was on the ground in Soviet Russia where
Counter-revolution first raised its head to be formid-
able. Here was beginning a revolutionary movement
that was respectable, that attracted all those ele-
ments of the population formerly within the sacred
circle of somebodies. Hitherto, revolution was a
despised thing, generally treason. Now it was a
glorified struggle, one hundred per cent. patriotic.
The ninety-five per cent. nobodies had gained power.
As the Germans, or a part of them, had long had
Der Tag, so had the Russians, all except a paltry
few, always had a day when Russia should rise tri-
umphant the Russia of the Masses. Russian liter-
ature is full of such a day. It was the embodiment
of this hope, this day of Ivan, the nobody, that
gave the work of Dostoieffsky and Tolstoy its power
and hold on the Russian people. Even in Russian
short stories one can perceive a groping recognition
of class struggle and a crystalizing anathema against
the proud and exclusive use of material possessions.
Well, the day of the Masses had come! The Pro-
letariat was making their will felt. Those of us who
considered it a privilege to be in Russia then saw the
dawning of The Day as a miraculous yet accom-
II
68
COUNTER-REVOLUTION
69
plished fact, beside which all the terror and injustice
there was sank to insignificance.
And now the dispossessed class, at first stunned by
its sudden fall, raised its head again; Reaction be-
gan in the summer of 1918. For a time the Bour-
geoisie had hoped to crawl back to power by compro-
mise, and by sprinkling soft words here and there,
insinuating the necessity of themselves and of their
virtues to the state. The Proletariat through its
sane and most trusted deputies acknowledged the
virtues in their intelligence and training, but dog-
gedly refused to yield supreme power.
The first outbreaks of counter-revolutionary zeal
amounted to little but to cause the establishment of
a counter-revolutionary tribunal with which to com-
bat them; they provoked what terror there was;
they brought out inter-class embitterment. Here
and there the Whites gained a city for a few hours;
they waged battle about and in Jaroslav for a week.
But the Whites were few in numbers, practically
the officer-element alone, and they were cowardly.
The thing that gave them courage and support was
the uprising of the Czech prisoners in Russia at the
instigation of the Allied chancellories. Here were
soldiers as well as officers who would fight recklessly.
These Czech fathers and sons most of all wanted to
go home; in a strange country they felt obedient to
Czech commands from above; accordingly, they did
the best thing they knew under the circumstances;
they did not know that above the Czech commands
from above was operating the jugglery of the Allied
70
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
chancellories; they did not know the import of their
act to Russia. To Russia it meant two years of civil
warfare. Every part of Russia suffered from it.
To Kolchak and Denikin and their ilk it brought
shame and a foul name as well as other miseries.
The Czechs made some ostensible excuse, of course,
for their sudden turning against their erstwhile
friends. The Czechs and other war prisoners had
been treated with extraordinary kindness in Russia,
particularly after the Bolshevik revolution. The
Proletariat considered them no natural enemies of
its own and hailed them as comrades of the Inter-
national.
An occasion for the uprising was made of a quarrel
as to whether the Czechs should be armed. The
story went that the Bolsheviks, very likely scenting
trouble, refused to give arms to their prisoners.
Then the Czechs, at the command of their officers,
took arms. The Bolsheviks protested. The Czechs
took possession of the cities of Pensa, Syzran, and
Samara. The Czechs in this body making the first
offensive numbered not more than ten thousand men,
but, scattered through Siberia were a hundred thou-
sand of them more or less. These Czechs in Siberia
simultaneously seized stations along the Trans-
Siberian railroad and soon had an anti-Bolshevik
government established throughout Siberia. Never
before, I suppose, when civil war threatened a coun-
try, has a force of its own war-prisoners been power-
ful enough to precipitate the war. Everybody, in-
cluding the Bolsheviks, believed the situation to be
COUNTER-REVOLUTION
111
critical. I was with several American Y. M. C. A.
workers at Kazan, which now became a “front.” A
fine dwelling on my street was requisitioned for the
headquarters of Murayov, commander of the first
Red army. Aëroplanes were flying over the city.
Samara, two days' journey on the Volga River
south from Kazan, was captured by the Czechs June
9. The Red Guard there was caught unawares.
Many of them were forced into the river and some
drowned; others, running without any clothes
through the streets of the city, were shot by partisans.
The entrance of the Czech army into the city is made
a veritable triumph by the anti-Bolsheviks. Flowers
are strewn at the feet of the victorious war-prisoners;
elaborate dinners and balls are given in their honor;
diamonds flash again and costly raiment appears out
of secret hiding-places, confirming a suspicion of
mine that all the luxuries of living had not suddenly
passed into Soviet coffers; in the cathedral church
the bishop allows the occasion to be marked by a
service of extra pomp, and by the lighting of all
the church candles as at Easter.
All the Commissars of Samara found were killed
on the spot. The Czechs let it be known that they
intended to destroy all the Bolshevik Commissars
they should ever find in any city. This was a part
of their boast and assurance that all Russia would
soon be in their hands. A counter-revolutionary Y.
M. C. A. man who was in Samara at the time of its
capture reported to us that the Czechs had strong
and brave forces, and that thousands of Russians
72
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
had joined their ranks. The Kazan press, however,
declared that this reputed Russian increment con-
sisted of boys only.
It was, of course, of great moment how the Rus-
sians looked upon the Czechs. Beyond any doubt,
the “ officer” and White Guard element, and, in fact,
all counter-revolution except its fringes, looked upon
these lusty Czechs as its savior, and hoped eagerly
for a swift military conquest of Moscow itself by
the Czechs for its own benefit. What the working-
men and peasants thought was not so clear, but,
generally, they seemed to oppose the new counter-
revolutionary government set up by the Czech com-
mander and composed of so-called “Constituent
Assembly" men. The Mensheviks categorically re-
fused to participate in the new government. Some
of this opposition at Samara came to a head several
days after the coup, in a riot in which 40 people
were killed. In a daily column of a Bolshevik news-
paper, under the heading; “ Where Bolsheviks are
not,” I read that the Russians in the territory oc-
cupied by the Czechs were loudly discontented with
their self-elected deliverers; that peasants refuscd
them bread, and that workmen were striking in pro-
test against their decrees. The Czechs very wisely
did not wait upon any popularity they might have,
but proceeded to the formation of a people's army,
declared to be voluntary, but, even at the time partly
conscripted, and, subsequently almost entirely con-
scripted.
The Czech victories were made possible by the
.
COUNTER-REVOLUTION
73
weakness of the “Red Army," which was then little
more than the dregs of the old army just demob-
ilized. Only rough men who liked soldiering as a
business and those who would not look to peace-time
employment hung on in the ranks. In addition to
them were many attracted to the army by high pay
and good food rations. Discipline was lacking, and
drill ridiculously insufficient; moreover, the old offi-
cers and generals, who later led the army to such
brilliant achievements, had not yet gone over to the
Bolshevik side. Such commanders as the army had
were none too trustworthy; that General Murayov,
of whom I spoke, was accused of dealing with the
Czechs and counter-revolutionaries, and was ar-
rested. In the ranks, too, revolutionary loyalty
could not be depended upon. During these critical
days I heard that one of the Red regiments fighting
at Simbirsk to stem the Czech advance, struck and
demanded two months' pay in advance. Under
threat of force one month's pay was given over to
the soldiers and motors were sent to Kazan to bring
back another month's pay. Instead of extortion
money, machine guns were dispatched from Kazan
and the mutineers were finally overpowered by troops
more loyal.
Under spur of necessity, a new “Red Army ” was
being formed by the energetic Trotsky. Pay was som
raised still higher. Some of the old officers con-
sented to take positions. A new discipline was im-
posed. Old munition plants were set going again; I
read in a Kazan newspaper that a munition works
174
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
ce
had been reopened in that city. The essential fea-
ture in the rebuilding of the army was the develop-
pient of the idea of labor battalions. The factories
were urged to send contingents of real Communists.
The reports from the front described how bravely
these labor companies fought. It is admitted now
that the successes of the new army would have been
impossible without the valor and enthusiasm of these
troops; they were the shock troops of the army.
Often in the city of Kazan I saw detachments of Red
soldiers that did not appear like the rabble I had
expected to see; they must have been representatives
of the “new” army, for they were young, upstand-
ing, and clean-looking.
Not only had the Proletariat a disorganized army
to begin its fighting with; it had, also, a divided
citizen-body; citizens of many political shades were
plotting against the Bolsheviks. Furthermore, the
very bottom of government was uncertain: the Soviet
was a raw, untried, new-fashioned instrument for
governing
The Soviet form of government had one funda-
mental weakness for a new government: a basic prin-
ciple of it was decentralization. Moscow was not
the rallying point and guide and authority it was
later to become. The Bolsheviks are great believers
in the doctrine of “ state's rights." We know that
in the early and in the later history of a certain
great republic support of this doctrine produced
periods of instability. Perhaps excessive decentral-
ization is a disease common to the childhood of
COUNTER-REVOLUTION
175
federalism. This principle was even made consti-
tutional in the new Russia. The Constitution of the
Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic states
(Art. I: Chapt. 1, Sec. 2) that “ The Russian Soviets
Republic is organized on the basis of a free union
of free nations, as a federation of Soviet national
republics"; and in (Art. I; Chapt. 4, Sec. 8) states
that “ In its efforts to create a league --- free and
voluntary, and for that reason all the more complete
and secure —— of the working classes of all the peoples
of Russia, the third Congress of Soviets merely
establishes the fundamental principles of the Feder-
ation of Russian Soviet Republics, leaving to the
workers and peasants of every people to decide the
following questions at their plenary sessions of their
Soviets; namely, whether or not they desire to par-
ticipate, and on what basis, in the Federal Govern-
ment and other Federal Soviet institutions."
This constitutional principle was adhered to in-
stinctively. In the early months of Bolshevism, it
was only by courtesy that one Soviet recognized the
arrangements of another Soviet. At the most it
might be said that the decrees of the Moscow Soviet
were only weighty precedent. An American consu-
lar agent came to Kazan to distribute President
Wilson's speeches in Russian in the factories. The
local city Soviet was willing that this literature
should be distributed, but would give no written order
compelling factory heads to admit the gentleman.
This doughty American — I met him — pressed it
upon the city fathers that the Moscow Soviet and

76
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
all the other Soviets with which he had had dealings
had given him a written order; that was as it was,
but Kazan was obedient unto Kazan only.
Local independence was carried to the point of
secession. Many parts of old Russia, such as Fin-
land, the Baltic Provinces, and the Ukraine, had
already declared their independence of the old im-
perial ties. Other states were on the point of fol-
lowing their example. It was reported that the
Georgians were eager to set up their own sove-
reignty; also the Don Cossacks were restless and
agitating for a Don republic. Separatist tendencies
were not only geographical. The Tartars held a
convention which bespoke some sort of internal au-
tonomy for their race, scattered though it was over
a wide area. Even the cotton producers and mer-
chants were meeting in.Moscow in the separate inter-
ests of the Kingdom of Cotton; they wished Cotton
autonomy — under All-Russian Federation protec-
tion.
Perhaps the most demoralizing of all disruptive
forces within the Soviet realm were the bitter attacks
the government had to withstand from both the Left
and the Right. The Anarchists, at the Left, were
a powerful party in some cities. In Samara, for
example, they made a strong bid for power in May,
and once when the Bolshevik troops were outside the
city fighting, they took control, deposed the Bolshe-
vik Commissars and installed some of their own.
Their coup lasted about six hours, till the Red
troops returned.
COUNTER-REVOLUTION
yg
The Right Social Revolutionary and Menshevik
Socialist parties were no less hostile. The Socialist
leaders of these parties, being no longer the directors
of the Socialist activity, were smarting under the
Revolution in their own way and not under the Bol-
shevik ægis. It was not till a year later that they
realized that the only way for them to help to save
the Revolution was to support the Bolsheviks, or, at
least, its Red Army, in the campaigns against Kol-
chak and Denikin.
The Social Revolutionaries (except the Left Social
Revolutionaries) and the Mensheviks were decried
by the Bolsheviks as counter-revolutionaries, as in
truth, at that time, many of them were. Openly,
these moderate Socialists were finding fault with the
Bolsheviks, as, of course, it was easy to do: the Bol-
sheviks had not yet brought about Utopia as some
people expected they might; hunger was increasing
instead of decreasing. Secretly, the Moderates were
responsible for a reign of terror, anti-Bolshevik,
which began the last week in June, Volodarsky, a
Commissar of Petrograd, being the first victim. A
committee of inquiry into these assassinations in
Petrograd reported that the conspiracy was financed
by Englishmen. In Kazan two prominent Bolshe-
viks were victims of this murder drive. The funerals
of these revolutionary martyrs were big public dem-
onstrations. The whole working population of Pet-
rograd turned out to the Volodarsky ceremonies. In
every case there is the warm oratory of eulogy; the
S
178
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
pre-revolutionary secret services of the hero are espe-
cially recalled. It is pointed out that he died in
sight of the promised land; that the cause for which
he labored to the final sacrifice will soon be com-
pletely won. Much fervid poetry about him ap-
pears in the newspapers.
The Bolsheviks came nearest a fall with the Left
Socialist-Revolutionary sedition the first part of
July. From the accession of the Bolsheviks to
power, the Left Social-Revolutionaries had been
working hand in hand with them and holding office in
the Soviet government. Some of their more influ-
ential members came to favor declaring war on Ger-
many, with the idea, especially, of freeing the
Ukraine peasants and comrades from the German
yoke. Through the plotting of this faction, Mir-
bach, the German ambassador, was shot and killed
in a theater in Moscow. The Bolsheviks might have
agreed to make war on Germany in order to purchase
recognition and other assistance from the Allies, but,
otherwise, they were unalterably for the peace they
had so dearly bought from Germany at Brest-
Litovsk. Some of the Left Social-Revolutionaries
tried to overthrow the Bolsheviks and usurp the
power. There was a short party battle in the
streets of Moscow and the Bolsheviks triumphed.
The Left Social-Revolutionaries split, à pro-
Bolshevik section forming a new party.
This was the last serious attempt to set up an anti-
Bolshevik government of Socialists within Soviet
Russia. The day of the Moderates and Compromise
COUNTER-REVOLUTION
199
was past. From now on there were only two fac-
tions, Bolsheviks and anti-Bolsheviks. At this time
I was traveling over a wide stretch of the country.
I left Kazan, July 23, traveling by boat to Nishni-
Novgorod, by train to Moscow, Petrograd, Vologda
and back to Moscow, all within two weeks. In the
course of my travels I felt the political pulse of a
large part of Russia. An average pulse, an average
of two diametrically opposed pulses, was about the
same in all the cities and towns I visited. But there
was no person of average pulse. The Left Social-
Revolutionary scdition had broken away whatever
middle ground there may have been. So it is always
with Counter-Revolution. When in the history of
any country Conservatism reaches a stage where it
is reactionary to the people's dominant will, a clean
split is made that is wider than the gulf between
Heaven and Hell.
Such was the Russia — with many of its choicest
territories lopped off ; rent in two by counter-revolu-
tion - that the Allies declared war upon in July,
1918. The smoke in which we had been living in
Russia cleared away.
For many months no one had known positively
which way the Allied diplomacy cat would jump.
When I first arrived in Russia in May there were
rumors, which have since been proved true, that the
Bolsheviks would openly go over to fight on the side
of the Allies, if the Allies would recognize them.
Raymond Robins had done his utmost to bring this
about. With his failure and his departure to Amer-
80
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
ica, there was no longer any representative of the
Allies left in Russia not really hostile to the Bolshe-
viks. On the other hand, there were rumors,
emanating chiefly from Allied sources, that German
influence was strong among the Bolsheviks. The
arrival of a German ambassador, Mirbach, .with staff
and military escort speeded these rumors. On the
roof of Mirbach's house was placed a formidable
anti-aircraft gun, which the Y. M. C. A. could see
from its headquarters and felt a menace. Mirbach's
assassination proved that his strong guard and his
gun were necessary precautions and not signs of Bol-
shevik favoritism. Trotsky put well the Bolshevik
attitude toward Germany at this time in a speech
of his I saw quoted from “ Pravda”: “ The Bolshe-
viks do not wish an alliance with Germany; no one
who understands the Bolsheviks could believe they
do; however, if actually they had to choose between
Japanese intervention and German intervention,
there would be no hesitation; Japan would come in
for Japan, and would stay; Germany would come in
with no less sinister designs, but the duration of the
German occupation would be less certain. The Bol-
sheviks would hope for changes brought about by
internal changes in Germany."
The Allies had really made their decision when
they egged on the Czecho-Slovaks to revolt. Bolshe-
vik leaders uncovered the part Allied agents had in
this conspiracy, and therefore expected the direct
attack by the Allies upon the Soviet Government;
they faced war with the Allies with reluctance.
YOU
COUNTER-REVOLUTION
81
The Allies, themselves, finally cast the die. Allied
pronunciamentos appeared late in July setting
forth the great concern of the Allied governments for
Russian welfare and independence, and their equal
concern that the ports of Russia and all the war sup-
plies in Russia should be safe from the Germans
- even those in Vladivostok. President Wilson's
pronunciamento spoke of Russia with especial tender-
ness. The Bolsheviks knew then where Mr. Wilson
stood; their socialist teachings should have intimated
as much to them long before. Wilson was counter-
revolution. From now on counter-revolution re-
ceived from Wilson and the Allies direct support in
money, weapons, food and encouragement. The
British Government considered counter-revolution
even an affair of honor: in due course they decorated
Denikin. Work for counter-revolution had recog-
nized merit outside Russia; it gave international good
standing.
I arrived at Vologda just in time for the excite-
ment and effect in that north region of the beginning
of the hostile movement of the English against Soviet
Russia. An official poster appeared all over the
city ordering all foreigners to leave within twenty-
four hours on penalty of death, as they could not be
protected at Vologda. The railroad line to Arch-
angel was closed to all except Red troops. We three
Y. M. C. A. men there bought tickets to Moscow at
once. The Secretary to the American Embassy was
provided a train, and, in spite of his proud Amer-
ican threats, was forced to leave at a certain hour.
82
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
The National City Bank of New York men made
protests, but went as ordered, taking their bank.
At Moscow we learned that British and French
officials had been arrested. No Americans were ar-
rested, but Russians could no longer put us in a
special category of friendly foreigners when it had
appeared in their newspapers that Americans and
Japanese had agreed on joint intervention in Siberia,
and absolute support of the Czech troops there.
This report was, of course, true, although I hesitated
to believe it at the time. Moreover, the English had
already invaded the country at Archangel, and had
a little skirmishing with the Red Guards there.
French officers had been discovered acting with the
Czechs.
These events greatly excited us at the Y. M. C. A.
palace, the luxurious home of a Russian ex(?)-
millionaire, where we were putting on the finishing
touches to packing already planned weeks before.
The Y. M. C. A. leaders believed that we were no
longer safe as Americans in Soviet Russia; the spe-
cial distinction previously accorded us would of
course now be forfeited. These leaders, however,
wished to continue the work of their secretaries
trained for Russia; the obvious way to do this was to
go across the lines into a congenial anti-Soviet Rus-
sia. Besides, there was positive reason for our going
thither which it was not necessary to state. I was
matter-of-fact enough to protest against going, at
least as far as I was personally involved, on the
ground that intervention in Russian affairs, at no

COUNTER-REVOLUTION
83
1
matter what military gain, was wrong, especially for
America; for by any logical deduction it was coun-
ter-revolutionary. The Y. M. C. A. is, however, not
an individual with a conscience, but an American
social group, and, therefore, speculation as to the
righteousness of American intervention was idle to
it; to its mind the bigger social group in which it was
included could not be wrong.
Accordingly, the whole Y. M. C. A., together with
a small group of Y. W. C. A. women, went to Nishni-
Novgorod on the Volga River, hoping to get from
there into the Czech lines. The Czechs and counter-
revolutionaries had just taken Kazan several hun-
dred miles south on the river, and the counter-revolu-
tionary Russians and all foreigners sympathizing
with them hoped that Nishni would also soon fall,
and then, promptly, Moscow, itself, thus making
Russia once more a decent civilized country for them.
We spent ten days at Nishni-Novgorod, living first
on our Y. M. special cars at the station, and later on
two boats at the wharves; the Kerzenetz, a steamer
lent the Y. M. C. A. by the Soviet Government for a
campaign of agricultural education, and another
large steamer. It was a delightful house-boat party.
We made merry with tea-parties. We attended
symphony concerts on the hill, glimpsing sunsets on
the way home; the concert was an hour or two earlier
than usual, because martial law obtained and every
person had to be in his house by ten o'clock.
But the prospect of welcoming victorious Czechs
faded day by day; we had to read of constant Bolshe-
84
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
vik successes against them on the Volga front.
Then, removing the annoyance of making our own
decisions, came the order of the American Consul-
General for us to return to Moscow. As it hap-
pened, we left Nishni to leave Russia, stopping in
Moscow only long enough to move our baggage to
the special train of first-class sleeping-coaches that
was to take all the Americans and some other for-
eigners out of Russia. At the little bridge mark-
ing the boundary between Russia and Finland, the
Finnish officials read out our names from our pass-
ports one by one. As my name was called and I
went with my especial lump in my throat over to the
Finnish side, a feeling not quite homesickness but
something like it, saddened me. We made the jour-
ney through Finland to Stockholm without excite-
ment.
SMASHING THE LINES
AN ACCOUNT, LARGELY IMAGINARY,
OF BI-ORGANIZATION ACTIVITY
The private car of the Association stood in the
railway yard just a little way from the Jaroslavki
station at Moscow, swept, windows being washed; the
car that had traveled in a wide circle for us: Petro-
grad, Samara, Archangel! It must be occupied with
evidence of immediate use in order to be retained by
us; it was a favor to be had only by the enjoying.
And “ Whiskers," a reverend Mr. Whiskers, and I
were detailed to enjoy it. Accordingly we made
ourselves comfortable in one of its coupés. To re-
pair or to forestall, sleeplessness, I have forgotten
which now, we proceeded to take a nap; but the sun,
shining broadly into the coupé, and the flies, which
seemed too many for so short a season, combined to
defeat our purpose until we counter-attacked by
spreading newspapers over our faces and hands; a
suggestion of Whiskers — I believe he had slept away
many such a summer afternoon before. Whiskers
taught me also the value of cheese for such a waiting
game. He had bought three pounds of cheese at the
famine price of twenty roubles a pound, and in no
time at all he had consumed two pounds and I, one.
85
86
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
It was exceedingly young cheese. “ There's nothing
mature in this country nowadays,” Whiskers consol-
ingly remarked; however, I took a fancy to the
cheese in just that degree of immaturity; in fact, I
learned to like cheese then by liking it young. We
passed the night quietly enough; I was not disturbed
by the shrill whistling of the shifting engines as I
had expected, from previous acquaintance with Rus-
sian railroad-yards.
In the morning confusing rumors were brought to
us. One was that we should all go out of Russia
through Finland. The German representatives
would guarantee us safe passage through Finland if
we would use what influence we had to help Germans
out of Russia at any time. As an alternative, we
should travel at once through Siberia and America
to France or Northern Russia.
The decision reached in the councils of the chiefs at
26 Smolensky Boulevard was to go to Nishni Nov-
gorod. We could! It was no secret why: we all
considered that it was only a matter of days before
our friends, the Czechs, were to conquer that fair
city.
The baggage! Our impediment! Tons of
extras that are the traveler's excuse for being! For
handling baggage, a committee was appointed, of
which I have been a happy member ever since; Charlie
Winthrop, “ Senator Charles," being chairman.
The Y. W. C. A. were making their escape with us;
consequently, there were added to our baggage tons
of pots, kettles, and wash-basins — white wash-
SMASHING THE LINES
87
basins that in dark Russia served as an emblem of
the cleansing power of the American woman. “Bags
and kettles to the Nicolaesky Station!” was the or-
der. Thither bags and kettles were transported by
robber-baron truck-drivers, unloaded by their
majestics, the porters, and then! Then we learned
that our cars were to go to the station for Nishni,
the Kursky station. To the Kursky station, then,
ye barons and kings of transport! At the Kursky
station they politely told us that our cars were on
the way between the two stations and would arrive
probably in four hours. It was ten o'clock at night.
So, tram cars having stopped, four of us piled into
one droshky, looking more like baggage than men,
and returned to “ 26 Smolensky," to sleep, bedless;
on guard at the station were left Hercules Homestead
and Fred Ness.
At ten the next morning our cars had not yet
arrived at the Kursky. So I became guard of the
mountain of our baggage in the main hall of the sta-
tion; I sat as contentedly as possible on a Y. W. C.
A. white bath-tub till four o'clock in the afternoon.
As I waited I read in an old Scribner's a romantic
article about Old Newport, and a salty description
of some Maine coast towns in summer; this number,
had its article on Russia, of course: Stuff and Non-
sense manufactured from a few arranged interviews
with officers during the Kerensky régime. Hercules
Homestead, still on committee duty, amuscd himself
by giving twenty kopecks to every beggar who ap-
proached him. The last time I asked his count, he
88
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
had distributed twelve roubles among sixty beggars.
The train was to pull out at six. At five-thirty
the party, including the “Y” girls, filed through
the platform gate, muttering “ Amerikanski Messe”
to the challenging guard, and marched, loaded with
odd scraps of baggage picked up at the last minute,
to cars designated by a knowing Russian secretary.
And made a mistake! We had taken possession of
the wrong cars in the wrong train, the special train
for Nishni of Citizen Trotsky and suite, a train de
luxe. We had to move our litter to more compressed
space. Senator Charles left behind his box of
leaflets explaining President Wilson to the Russian
people; he said this was not a case of his reputed
forgetfulness, but strategy. After a fuss, and the
bobbing up of each “Y” girl in turn to inquire, we
found the right cars, with name-tags of occupants,
written in Pa Sherman's distinctive hand, tacked to
each coupé. Who was with whom? “Goods" with
“ goods," “ bads” with “bads”? No, a mistake:
two smokers with two non-smokers. Righted, at the
suggestion of the non-smokers.
To Nishni Novgorod, the Fair City! By night!
A cold, frosty night with a bright moon displaying
yellow flat grain fields and silvery birches, and rail-
road banks covered with dewy wild-flowers. In our
little freight-car, tagging our sleepers, was a bour-
geois store of flour that caused us uneasiness; some-
how, somebody might detach this little car. A
guard was appointed, one American, and one Russian,
secretary, for each separate hour of the night, in
SMASHING THE LINES
89
order to patrol the flour at each stop and also to
keep out of our cars the crowds of Russians traveling
from station to station. During my watch from
three to four, one fellow persisted in getting on our
car; the young Russian who was on guard with me
maliciously locked him into the vestibule, with the
result, so the young Russian told me with huge de-
light, that at the following station, which happened
to be his, the fellow had to extricate himself and
baggage through the vestibule-door window. Dur-
ing my watch we passed Vladimir. The walls and
buildings of its Kremlin shone in the oblique rays of
the rising sun, a magic city, white, white, white!
So, you have us at Nishni, the Y. M.'s and the Y.
W.'s, ready for the dash across the Red lines! By
compromise, by plain presto-change, or simply by
being there when the Czecho-Slovak armies moved
into town. Let me narrate that campaign of the two
middle weeks of August.
We Americans must not be conspicuous. That
was the order-in-council, No. 1. Therefore, only a
few of us could go to town at the same time, and only
two together. As if we could fool the Bolsheviks!
They knew we were in town soon enough and consid-
ered our case. They were remarkably courteous.
However, we could get no permission to go through
the lines to Samara. Messengers were sent to Mos-
cow with letters; we thought it unwise to use the tele-
graph. Mr. Chicherin, the Bolshevik foreign min-
ister, was sick, but our persistent Mr. Bavis would
get the permission from him or would not permit him
(D
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evansa
to recover health. We would accept a permission to
leave Russia in any way; for we were come to that,
now. While it was preferable just to fade away
into that part of Russia returned to law and order,
still it was above all imperative that we disappear
altogether from this land of the federated republics.
Feeling was rising against the Americans. The
distinction between us and the English was growing
slighter and slighter. The girl who sold us flour-
candy at a Nishni store called us “enemy.” That
same morning's yesterday's Pravda had announced
the landing of the Japanese and the American
" Imperialists" at Vladivostok. Members of our
party were arrested frequently by some simple-
minded Red-Guards for officers. Such a stupid mis-
take! Who would take our dusty, frowsily-dressed
secretaries for bourgeoisie! And then, too, so arbi-
trarily to misplace us: the American can never con-
sider himself as bourgeois; that's a foreign term and
a foreign conception. But you see the class struggle
all over Russia was becoming keener and keener,
Every town had its committee against counter-revo-
lution. In Petrograd and in Moscow all officers were
arrested and many held in confinement. However we
looked, we certainly felt smudgy — till we found one
of the city's steambaths -- but I suppose our faces
were too intelligent not to give us away. One even-
ing the whole party was arrested at the station as
we were eating dinner, and marched, hatless and coat-
less — and caneless — to the police station. The
committee-head therc, after hearing what interpre-
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91
ters had to say for us, pronounced the whole affair
an unfortunate misunderstanding, and we fellows
pronounced it a grand lark — that is, afterward!
Every such campaign has its determinative epi-
sodes. Every such set of days has its own gist for
diaries. So, amid the suspense of this fortnight,
there began for two in the joint parties, an engross-
ing, and for all of us, a diverting, series of episodes
that, at times, made private interest eclipse inter-
national. It was so!
In my coupé, among the four (?) “ goods ” was
one Fred Ness, a Y. M. C. A. secretary of several
years' service in China and Russia: plain in appear-
ance, but sound in judgment, full of initiative, and
withal comparatively open-minded. One quickly
felt there was a lack of savor in him; perhaps it was
that by going on Y. M. C. A. service to China in his
early twenties he had lost touch with the tang of the
social life of men and women of his own age. His
slang was arrested at the college-graduate period.
It was, you might say, academic. He hadn't been
disillusioned in the microscopic world of money and
theater-going, of book-talk and women — many
women; he was drafted into the macrocosm of
“ China for the world!” Any man of twenty would
be dwarfed by such large aims.
Fred by accident came to eat with the Y girls
in their car. He happened to pass through at din-
ner-time one day and exclaimed.“ ah!” at the rice
pudding; after that he ate four meals and his teas
there every day. There also he found several other
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SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
Y. M.'s, attracted by some convenience or other.
And already the pairing had begun. It happens so
in any society that holds together a week, or in a
house-party over a week-end. What so natural that
it should happen when a group of educated young
Americans of both sexes meet on national service
abroad! What better way to forget Trotsky and
the orders of “ a state of siege " !
Fred was in siege. It was the black-haired Elise
that first he noticed, then admired, then acquired as
a habit. Elise was a woman who could travel over
a whole continent with only a knapsack, a new kind of
woman to Fred. He didn't know that while he had
been apart from women in his American university
and in China, the woods were becoming full of such
trim women, women without those loose ends that his
sisters and female cousins exhibited. Elise was firm
and quick to make clean, ample plans of action. She
bought curios and pictures with talkativeness. She
could describe a little shop in an off-strect, so that
a man would hunt it out the next morning for him-
self, or, if he understood woman's way of inviting,
would request the lady to conduct him, herself, to the
spot. And Elise knew French and German well
enough to make the learning of Russian by the com-
parative method seem easy and entertaining to a
fellow — any way is easier than learning by a book!
Furthermore, Elise was, without doubt, a woman:
uncertain, full of interesting little wishes, and al-
ways sympathetic toward Fred's little ways of think-
ing. She understood why he had tried foreign serv-
LI
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93
ice, just during those formative years, too; it was
better than the crude ambition to make money in
New York or Chicago.
Fred's warm social life was only a little more
lively than that of the rest of us up there at Nishni.
Miss Sayles, an old maid at twenty-four, and Miss
Morton of the thick eyeglasses, far less an old-maid
at thirty-nine, also attracted “ regulars,” but for all
we might conjecture, these might be only flirtations.
Besides, to be sure, there was Mr. Niles who was
doubtless engaged to Miss Tibbetts, but his was one
of those unromantic cases of mild propinquity that
can never make deep gossip; everybody simply said:
“Why don't they announce it, so we can have a
party, so we can be sentimental about it, even if they,
themselves, aren't.”
We all “ got pretty thick.” Within thirty-six
hours we were calling each other by first-names. Our
social life wasn't the less cool, nor the less lively, that
we were living on a boat! You see we were thrown
out of our special cars on Track No. 6 in the rail-
road yard. Some railroad commissar sent word
by a saucy deputy that our railroad cars
were not given us for hotels, and later we
received a handsome rent-bill covering the days
we had lived in the cars. Then John Daly
shrewdly engaged for our occupation one of the
squadron of boats tied up in enforced idleness at the
Volga wharfs. It was an old fellow, used of late
only in the local traffic, full of small life — they
called for my last can of Thomson's powder (buy.
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SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
IS
Thomson's, it is the deadliest kind!). On this boat
our parties were divided into two groups. I was
quartered in second-class, where were all the Y girls.
The men at the other end were, strange to say, better
fed: they had among them a born cook; his menus
comprehended all the requisite food values, and bet-
ter still, double the number of necessary calories.
But we on our end of the old tub suffered no lack!
We also had griddle cakes, a real pie, American pud-
dings; and we alone had a genuine double-decker,
chocolate frosted-cake. The Russian secretaries
called this Mazurka, a Polish concoction; however I
am certain that, though generally speaking the
Russian cooking may excel ours, they don't know
how to bake anything quite like a Yankee frosted-
cake. Elise made the frosting, Fred scraped the
frosting-dish! Such were his privileges during those
days when we were all privileged to live high, higher
than we had lived since we left home. And it didn't
cost us a great deal, only about fifteen roubles
($1.80) per day.
You can imagine what parties we had: tea parties,
reading parties, Russian-study parties, marketing
parties! The tea parties were for the small sets of
pairs, of from four to six persons. Passing by cabin
doors, one could catch a glimpse of all the good
things; jam, honey, butter, sugar and white bread!
Now you must know that all these articles are at the
present time in Russia more rare and more to be
desired than ancient wines. The opening of a pot
of jam, jam in which sugar is mixed as it used to be
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95
in the old pre-famine days, is attended by much
ceremony and much watering of the mouth. I sat
in at one reading party. A simple translated story
of Tolstoy's was read by one of the wits, by the fel-
low who amused himself editing a daily nonsense-
sheet and writing festive poems. I seated myself
near the sugar-bowl, and in the tense moments of
the narration — some parts of the story were very
touching!--I smuggled lump after lump of sugar
into my tea, tea so strong that one couldn't see the
lump dissolve in it! All these folks are indeed fond
of Tolstoy; every one has him along; he survives cach
paring of baggage.
This military adventure of ours, this attempt to
break through the crumbling (?) lines of the Bolshe-
viks was a blithesome time, and to give it up, brought
us, as day-to-day mortals, real sorrow. But it was
a failure, at least as a short-time proposition. We
all believed that sooner or later there would be an-
other power in Nishni Novgorod than the Bolsheviks,
but we couldn't await that day. The Bolsheviks
were roguishly winning little victories down the river.
Our good consul-general insisted that we come to
Moscow: Moscow was a better point of departure!
As we assembled for a religious service, Sunday
morning, August 25th, in the first-class saloon, our
leader remarked how it seemed that all our important
movements in Russia had had to be made on Sunday;
telegrams were read; there was no case even for argu-
ment about alternatives ; so we should try to make
the evening train for Moscow if permissions from the
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SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
T
1
Nishni authorities could be obtained during the day;
there was no time for the religious service; the heavy
baggage must be ready within an hour; a small tug
would pull alongside for it.
But in the face of this doom, we in second-class
continued our revels. That was the day of the
frosted-cake. There were “last teas " in the after-
noon. At six o'clock word came that the light bag-
gage must be down instantly for the droshkies. This
news occasioned a scramble! We “ downed” hot
cocoa and white bread and jam, and, helter-skelter,
packed kettles and pans, camp chairs and cooking-
dishes. We must not leave behind the family broom;
our broom had been a find; it's only brushes they
use in Russia. Other household essentials to be sure
to pack were the fool maimed doll and our salt and
pepper knick-knacks, Napoleon and Joseph, table
gods. Another word came! The droshkies will not
come for us; they fear the early closing-hour in the
state of siege. A catastrophe, indeed! A big pile
of our baggage lay at the wharf beside the boat.
The station was three miles distant. But large
promises brought first one droshky and then another.
Meantime, the members of the party hurried off to
the station, some riding and some shank's-mare,
carrying along as much of their own personal belong-
ings as bearable. I was one of the victims who
walked, carrying my rucksack on my back, with tea-
pot and water-bottle tied to it; a typewriter, walk-
ing stick, and small traveling-bag in one hand; and
on my shoulder balancing a sheet, which contnined
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97
all the traveling equipment of Lena, a sweet little
Russian domestic attached to the Y. W. C. A. Lena
was trotting along beside me, and trying to keep up
with my long strides, and saying “ Nicheva,” which
translated in this case, might mean: “ there is no
hurry!”
Fred and Elise were the last to go. Fred was
that magnanimous he would not leave the burning
deck. And Elise was as magnanimous as Fred! In
a broken caravan, Y. M.'s and Y. W.'s, manservants
and maidservants, goods and chattels,- all reached
the station in time, except Fred and Elise. They,
faithful ones, saw the last scraps of that pile of
baggage on a droshky, including the maimed doll,
and Napoleon and Joseph, but there was no room re-
maining for them to ride. They waited too long for
another droshky and missed the train. They were
the only Americans left in the city. They hadn't a
piece of baggage between them; and, what was a
more serious inconvenience, neither spoke more than
traveler's Russian.
Of course Fred and Elise showed signs of despair,
but the despair of the one melting into the despair
of the other brought to both hope, courage, even
joy! Indeed, their misfortune might be regarded
as a stroke of luck; Fred probably thinks he would
never have won his fair Elise without such a turn of
events: I suppose Elise has persuaded him of that by
now.
They went back to the boat, as if there was no
other place to go to. Fred borrowed blankets from
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SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
the caretaker there, and he made up a bed in the
second-class, and she in the first-class, at opposite
ends of the boat. I can imagine that the common
danger did not take the edge off the usual ardor of
their “spooning," as they walked this night on top
the boat in the moonlight. This night, there was no
one below for their footsteps to disturb, provoking
later reference.
In the morning they found a Russian formerly in
the service of the Association. He helped them to
get united in a Bolshevik marriage. As you may
guess, this consisted of the barest declarations before
a magistrate. It is hard to believe that Fred would
consent to such an outlandish thing. It shows how
much Fred had changed; he had indeed caught up
with the times! Having gone that much off the
beaten track, he did not go directly back; having
followed one bypath at random, he followed another!
Jokingly, several of us had discussed while at
Nishni the feasibility of walking over to the Czech
lines. Fred had not been one of these several: this
wasn't exactly his kind of humor. But now in all
reality these newly-weds undertook the “walking
trip.” They might have thought to overtake us at
Moscow or Petrograd. They could have done so.
But I suppose they had ceased to think of us. Prob-
ably they were glad to be rid of us; we had poked
such fun at them; as people will poke fun at lovers.
The pair had roubles enough between them; Fred,
a good many, I think. They bought two knapsacks
.
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99
and light provisions and set out. From village to
village they progressed, by hired conveyances where
possible. They bought food and slept, as it was
most convenient. I suppose they did not care how
long or how difficult their journey was — why worry
away a honeymoon?
It was inevitable that they should become recog-
nized as foreigners. Several Bolshevik soldiers were
sent to arrest them. Luckily the Bolshevik in charge
was an officer of the old army, and instead of arrest-
ing them, he actually put them across the lines. The
Red Army is full of such fellows, men serving for a
livelihood, or serving to aid at the proper moment
in the counter-revolution. I have every reason to
believe that there are wide-spread plots to restore a
more or less conservative government, and that the
conspirators are putting their men in positions where
they can forward the counter-revolution from inside
the Bolshevik army, itself! Such a pseudo-
Bolshevik was the commissar in re Fred Ness
and wife! And this same fellow coming on some mis-
sion intrusted to him by the Proletarian leaders, to
Petrograd, while we were detained there before being
granted permission to leave Russia via Finland -
told a diplomat on our train, and the diplomat told
us, this termination or climax, of the story of Fred
and Elise. This seems to me one of the most remark-
able things I have known in Russia. For I think I
know the characters of Fred and Elise, and they
acted contrary to their characters: they acted like
100 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
genuine Russians. The fact remains that they alone
of the lot of us did smash the lines and are now safely
on the other side, already giving succor to our allies,
while we travel half-way round the world to be in a
position to do so.
SUNLESS KOLA
While we were comforting and regaling ourselves
in Stockholm, after getting out of Soviet Russia,
news came that our party of American Y. M. C. A.
war secretaries was to go to North Russia in the
vicinity of Archangel or Murmansk. Immediately
I saw in prospect a house of ice and a hibernating
life like that of an Eskimo. What else could one
expect two hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle!
And never was this particular error of my geograph-
ical imagination entirely corrected till a year later
when, outside Russia altogether, I came across a
comparative table of Russian temperatures and
learned that the average winter temperature of
Archangel was only a fraction of a degree colder
than that of Kazan a thousand miles to the south;
moreover, at Kola, where I spent my winter, our
proximity to the gulf-stream must have raised our
average temperature several degrees above that of
Archangel.
On the way to our destined hibernation, Birkhaug
and I were diverted for three weeks to the Nor-
wegian town of Kirkenes at the northern terminus
of the coast-line steamers. A large majority of the
population of Kirkenes were workers for a German-
owned iron mine that during the war was being
101
102 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
1
worked only at a minimum rate. The spirit of that
town was modern, in spite of its being at a land's-end :
it was a world unto itself, and distinctly a labor
world. The miners had their own newspaper, co-
operative store, and club. The editor of their social-
ist newspaper was their preacher and legislator. In
a funeral sermon over the body of a young man from
the town who had been one of the many victims of an
epidemic raging at a camp among those doing their
two years of military service, this editor made a
violent attack on military conscription. All of this
violent preacher's flock were Bolshevik Socialists;
there were many such flocks in Norway, I was led
to believe. One of the few ladies in the place in-
formed me in a tone of horror that all the housemaids
in Norway belonged to a union.
That bleak town nestled in a hollow among high
rocks jutting into the Arctic Sea had a physical
fascination for me. I roamed the high rocks often.
Just those cliffs, the sea, and the sunshine provided
for me great wild beauty; such as I had only imag-
ined before; it helped me to understand what fed
the imagination of Björnson in the creation of those
imperishable stories of his. There was one small
meadow in the place, and some of the vegetable
gardens, though frosted, were still green in October.
These weeks among the desolate rocks, and among
the hardy, Bolshevik Norwegians prepared me for
the bleakness of North Russia and for the simple,
kindly Russian folks of Kola, much gayer than their
Norwegian brethren across the border. Villagers
SUNLESS KOLA
103
passing along the main wooden sidewalk of Kola were
never too cold to stop for a greeting, usually cheer-
ful and often ample. For two months those Russians
lived absolutely without sight of the sun, and some
days with the moon yellow at midday. In such a
country a sunny face has its value.
Kola, nine miles from Murmansk, at the end of
Kola Bay, under Telegraph Hill, was, before the
advent of the railroad and the growth of Murmansk,
the port town of the region, and what trading the
sparse population needed was effected here, chiefly
with Norwegians. It was this town a British fleet
attacked during the Crimean War. Townspeople
will point to you to-day signs of the damage done
the village by that bombardment.
British troops then, 1918-1919, were again at
Kola; in coats of a different color, but with the same
British hearts beating underneath; and British coat
and heart aroused, no doubt, the same feelings in the
native population of 1850 as I witnessed aroused
seventy years later. At the village of Kola was the
British (and Allied) headquarters of the northern
half of the Murmansk military district. Here were
stationed a regiment or two of British troops, and a
full battalion of Italians. Practically all the sol-
diers were quartered in hastily-erected barracks at
Kola Station, two miles from the village.
The presence of such a host of foreign visitors
made me feel less distant from the moving world of
humanity, less as if connected with a party for polar
exploration. Life moved fast in Kola, for Kola.
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SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
Wireless messages from the western front, and later
from Paris, were received daily. We knew critical
news as soon as Londoners, but we had to wait from
three to four weeks for London newspapers, to know
those small straws of information that show the way
the wind is blowing, and without which critical news
loses force and meaning. We learned, for example,
that the Republicans had captured the American
Congressional elections, but we couldn't know why:
whether it meant Wilson had grown unpopular, that
the war was unpopular, or that a domestic policy had
discredited the administration. News came of the
overwhelming defeat of the Independent-Liberal and
Labor parties in England, but the election figures
told no story. And it is story, after all, that makes
political facts interesting, not the facts themselves.
People who read only political headlines in their
newspapers, naturally cannot enjoy the game of
politics, nor, in the long run — if you will pardon
an American for saying so — can they vote in-
telligently.
The news of the armistice brought the same per-
sonal tremors in Kola that it brought in London or
New York, though our public demonstration of our
feelings of relief was quite humble. Kola's celebra-
tion and mine happened November 12, according to
orders from headquarters, in this way. At ten the
troops marched behind the excellent band of the
Italians through the village, with a review in front
of the church. I had a Stars and Stripes packed
at the bottom of one of 50 unpacked parcels, and by
SUNLESS KOLA
105
the time, after a tearing search, I had guessed the
right parcel, it was too late to have it present at the
review; but, brought to the light, it served, at any
rate, to proclaim Americanism to the village, being
hung on a pole atop a high fence, just beneath,- as
was right and fitting — my landlord's Russian flag.
There was a Te Deum at the church, a thanksgiving
for the advent of peace, or, at least, of the ceasing of
formal warfare. Then for four solid hours, in a
lusty and a carefree Russian way, the church bells
were rung. I saw the boys, five or six, up there in
the belfry, dressed in warm hats and mittens, pulling
the tongues of the bells with ropes.
Bells of Russia!
Flute, drum and fiddle.
Staccato and succulent,
Sweet and somnolent,
And always musical:
Most melodious bells of gay-sad Russia!
That church tower, even when silent as well, rang
out a message of its own. On top of it was a huge
green dome, surmounted by a small gilded dome and
gilded rod. These colors made warm the landscape
for miles around, and the white of the church's high
walls was a rallying point for the bright colors of the
other buildings of the village to cluster about. The
C. 0. (commanding officer) invited some Russian
dignitary to lunch, and chatted with him decorously
in Russian (here was one English officer who could
speak, and speak well, the native language). This
106
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
representative native had plenty of beard, which
appeared most flourishing when he raised a glass of
the mess's best whiskey to his lips. He wore proudly
a decent suit of black clothes that did not allow for
his corpulence, and he was as gracious and cere-
monious as a Russian may be. I suppose the C. O.
was delincating what a future lies in store for Russia
when order finally comes in its affairs.
In the afternoon I followed a beckoning white road
into the hills. I passed English soldiers at a game
of football, beating their arms to keep warm as they
ran. A long stretch of water, steely-blue, ran up out
of sight among the hills where the sun was scťting.
I returned through the village streets. The houses,
generally built of hewn logs, look like blockhouses;
they have little windows, the lines of many of them
are aslant; and there is usually a high board fence
with a wide gate, enclosing their yards. Women in
the thinnest clothes and no stockings were crossing
the yards. Mischievous-looking children were play-
ing at the street-corners. At a shrine down on the
peninsula-end, at the head of the village, where there
are a large wooden cross, six fect high, under a wooden
canopy, and a tiny chapel with two bells hung out-
side, I met a group of boys playing. They teased me
for cigarettes. I asked them what the white cross
was for. They said it was Boog (God). They
spoke neither seriously nor mockingly.
In the evening was a dinner at Kola Station for
the Allied officers and thcir guests. All the Allics
SUNLESS KOLA
107
were toasted in turn. For Russia, spoke up Engi-
ncer Kozcvnckoff, thereafter nicknamed “ The Father
of Humanity,” urging international fraternity, and
so forth! “Bas les Boshes! Bas les Boshes ! ” came
the cry, quite good-naturedly, from all the diners.
The Father of Humanity was outvoted in this league
of nations; and giving an unexpected brotherly kiss
to Padre Rawson, he accepted with resignation the
positive check his extreme humanitarianism had re-
ceived.
Old Kozevnckoff had a witty way of putting his
points that entitled him to considerable license.
Here are instances of his wit; the man is worth the
digression. He was having tea with the machine gun
officers one day and took an especial liking to the
corn syrup. “Let me try a combination," he ex-
claimed, his wolfish cyes twinkling. And he was
permitted to spread first butter, then jam, then
syrup, on a Huntley & Palmer biscuit. Raising it
before the mess in the candle-light, he made his point
with deliberate preciseness. “ Sce here the butter,
the jam, the syrup on this biscuit — the four Allies,
three on the back of the biggest (Russia)!” An-
other day he was inquiring of some Y. M. C. A. secre-
taries if the Russian civilians might buy at their can-
teens. “Sorry, no!” they replied with careful con-
cern; “we are forbidden to sell except to soldiers."
“ And may the Russian soldiers buy from you?” he
inquired further. « Certainly, the Russian soldiers
will be treated exactly as the other Allied troops."
108 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
“ Then,” commented Kozevnekoff, briefly," it will be
necessary for the civilian to be acquainted with a
Russian soldier!”
After dinner, as the strange end to the day of
celebration, came the evening telegram sheet with the
news that the old German government had been com-
pletely overturned and that a new cabinet had been
Socialists. This news might raise questions in the
imaginative mind. Such things, it was possible,
might affect vitally that very victory we had just
celebrated. But such questioning, if there were any,
- perhaps some minds cannot conceive of any revo-
lution until it is an accomplished fact! - held no
serious place in the minds of the officers of the gar-
rison, then jubilant and far from sober. The next
day and the next day following, their minds were
occupied, on the one hand, with matters of admin-
istrative detail, and, on the other, with the day's
sport or the week's dance.
That was an ideal country for skiing. Officers
went about their tasks on skis ; they made the jour-
ney to Murmansk that way. A mobile column, call-
ing for the enlistment of sportsmen, was trained to
be of military service on skis.
The town boys seemed most proficient in the sport.
Their skis were home-made, often as rude as barrel
staves, and one ski seemed to be as good as two.
They would also toboggan downhill on every descrip-
tion of a box. Their swiftest way of getting about
town was on skates,
SUNLESS KOLA
109
The prize stunt was to obtain the chance to drive
to Rustikent by reindeer teams. That was rapid
travel, indeed; scaling the sides of steep hills and
crossing country where roads could never be. It is
a pretty sight to see a team of reindeer swinging
along in open country; it is a thrilling experience
to be so carried. The reindeer will travel 24 hours
at a stretch without rest or food. The caryosas in
which persons are carried for such a cross-country
journey are in size and appearance like a light boat;
several are tied together, and are pulled in a string
by a team of several animals. Often one of the
caryosas is caught by a tree or bush and broken off
from the team; often this light carriage is tipped
over with all its contents. On the Rustikent trip, the
whole party is put up on one night in a small shack
already densely populated with a native family or
two; if properly equipped, it may bivouac in the
snow. When after a journey of two or three days
the traveler arrives at Rustikent, he is entertained by
the widowed Queen of the Lapps, who wears the most
exquisite furs, and who makes him the most liberal
presents (to be returned, of course, with presents of
greater value in her eyes). For this northern queen
is wealthy: she owns many herds of reindeer; her
rule, as the rule of a modern sovereign should be, is
based upon economic supremacy. But the foreign
pilgrims, no matter of what rank, are given the honor
of playing cards with her, and following such inti-
macies are permitted before departure to put her on
their kodak films in her most queenly furs. In Rus-
--
110
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
tikent, the Lapp capital, are 1500 people in winter.
These people would give the most valuable furs,
boots, and slippers for small value in the food or lux-
uries of foreign pilgrims, and, no doubt, considered
the exchange highly advantageous to themselves.
The English officers, however, who were dealing regu-
larly with them in an official way, tried to fix a fair
rate of exchange upon a money basis.
I spent most of my time indoors, where my work
was. Our Y. M. C. A. was quartered in a fine look-
ing log house of one story, built high from the
ground. The canteen occupied the two spacious
rooms on front; here we permitted to meet in the
daytime some of the classes of the village school
driven from their own building because of its requisi-
tion. Besides the two front rooms, we had a small
class-room, and a kitchen, where we made the can-
teen drinks and also held classes, in a pinch; and
I had a comfortable room there, kept warm by a large
Russian oven stove, constructed on the principle of
preserved heat; a fire was built in it once every 24
hours in the coldest weather; and then when the
fire was down to embers, the stove was closed off from
the chimney, thus shutting the heat in the stove.
The canteen's greatest attraction was a gramophone
and sct of records, both far better than the average,
which Tom, Dick and Harry ran to his own liking;
with the consequence that the machine often went on
a strike; fortunately, however, there was always some
Tom about to mend it. At the cantecn counter we
sold when we had them, coffee, biscuits (Huntley &
SUNLESS KOLA
111
Palmer's sweet biscuits), soap, soup, candles, ciga-
rettes, and darning cotton. Our supplies were so lim-
ited and so spasmodically forwarded that we could
permit no soldier to purchase at one time more than a
half packet of biscuits, one packet of cigarettes, or
one cake of soap. Even if we had had the stock of a
Wanamaker's, we should have sold it out too quickly:
the soldiers had no other place to spend their money.
My especial part of the divided Y. M. C. A. labor
of the Kola district was the direction of the educa-
tional classes at the village and at the station. The
Russian inhabitants flocked to our school and took
what it offered greedily, but the soldiers had, after
a taste, their own opinion about the excitement of
learning Russian. The officers stuck to study more
resolutely, particularly where the teacher was a rep-
resentative of Russia's keen young women. All the
feverish activity about these novel classes of ours
appears to me now but an idle flourish. Yet hidden
currents in the camp life were touched by this educa-
tional effervescence, and while it gave these currents
no permanent outlet, it quickened them a little and
kept them moving, perhaps to find a worthy outlet
later in peace days. Trivial education is better than
none at all. At least, it makes for educational ap-
pearances, and these in turn make an environment
in which serious educational activity may originate.
The waters of social life at Kola were more deeply
stirred. Here we had the willing assistance of those
never-to-be-forgotten native young women — barish-
nas. They did their bit at the officers' parties; they
112 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIÁ
came out in smaller, but still in loyal, numbers at
the dances for soldiers. The York regiment oper-
ated a vaudeville circuit along the line of the rail-
road in the occupied area, and there was intense com-
petition for membership in the party, for it meant a
trip down the line in the special concert train and
relief from all other duties. When these entertainers
gave one of their performances at Kola, the Italian
section of the audience was so captivated by the ap-
pearance of one of the performers taking the part of
a nurse that several of them crowded about the stage
door during the intermission to serenade her.
Every one was involved sooner or later in an extempo-
raneous concert; it did not matter what he did; only
he had to have a part. The Roman Catholic Padre
borrowed the use of the canteen for a social gather-
ing of his flock one Sunday afternoon, and it was
philosophically amusing to see how bravely each sol-
dier, as he was called up in turn, did his bit; although
probably these efforts cost some of them as great
torture as I knew it was causing some of their
auditors.
Special pains were taken by the junior officers
to keep their seniors entertained, above all, the
General. Serafima —a bright-eyed, sweetly-petite
graduate of the Archangel Gymnasium, who wore an
adorable coat of soft, reddish-brown young reindeer
skin, with hat to match,- was engaged to give the
General expert advice on matters pertaining to the
Russian language (the General was not the C. O. who
had the representative Russian citizen to lunch in
SUNLESS KOLA
celebration of the armistice). Petrozavodsk Marusa,
a handsome though pouty girl of only sixteen such
winters, was had to headquarters dinner, under the
chaperonage of her rather bibulous parents — a
necessary evil; great use was found, also, for Bol-
shevik Mary, in spite of her suspiciously precise Ger-
to shake the floor of some houses at small Russian
dances, she possessed, indubitably, grace in her steps,
and, probably, music in her soul, with which to be-
guile his sir-ship, the General, at the officers' dances.
The Kola I knew was socially a contrast to the
labor-society of Kirkenes, Norway. Bolshevik-Soci-
ety had vanished from Kola a few months before my
arrival, and during my stay only Bourgeoisie-Society
flourished, guided and purified by the several leading
families. The two richest men in Kola were mer-
chants. The richest, Kukin, had made his money in
Norwegian trade. In Czarist days, as he boasted,
he had entertained Petrograd friends in his house.
Now his outstanding, well-built house had been
requisitioned for headquarters, and Lady Kukin ex-
pressed with tears in her eyes her rage at seeing the
damage her home suffered by occupation of English
officers. I felt the malicious prompting to ask her
if she had prospered better than this during Bol-
shevik days — if she hadn't lost use of her housc, in
large part, if not altogether. At Murmansk, the
great lady of the town was the widow of the admiral
whose sailors had murdered him in the harbor. She
mourned her husband profoundly. She declared to
114 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
me that she should always, till her death, live in Mur-
mansk — the scene of his last tragic days and his
burial place. She was indeed a beautiful, accom-
plished, and haughty person. Nevertheless financial
embarrassments compelled her to tutor Allied officers
in languages; and what a tang her reluctance must
have given at every lesson to the British or French
conqueror-student!
Christmas provided an excuse for heightened
socialibity. The Russian Christmas, by coming ac-
cording to the church calendar thirteen days after
ours, made possible a prolonged holiday festivity and
a thorough exchange of holiday courtesies. We ar-
ranged our big party for Christmas night. The hall
chosen for this gala occasion had the insalubrious
name, “ The Horse Barns," owing to the fact that
French cavalry had been quartered there the previ-
ous summer. The circumstance, so a trusty Russian
acquaintance informed me, somewhat handicapped us
at the start; but it was still possible to make the
party a success, he said, by a judicious issue of the
invitations ; if, however, one of the village families
not considered “nice " were invited, the “ nice” peo-
ple would hear of it and not come. One further
caution: if the Russians saw so much as one of their
hosts beginning to be drunk, they would immediately
be escorting their daughters to the coat room. Con-
sequently, on Christmas evening our committee were
waiting in the festooned. “ Horse. Barns” very nerv-
ously for the first guests. These appeared, finally,
with disarming smiles, Captain Helmholtz and his
Un
1
SUNLESS KOLA
115
wife, German-Russian refugees from Riga – our
principal guests. At that moment a group of three
or four Tommies who had not refused their Christmas
rum ration, nor any of the liquor extras for the day,
spontaneously decided to dance a jig noisily in a
corner lighted with a large festive candelabrum.
They executed their decision instantly. Swiftly, as
if on wings, Lieutenant Bull of the Committee moved
across the hall and quieted this inopportune, and, as
it turned out, this isolated, case of super-abundance
of spirits; but, too late! Captain Helmholtz and
family had vanished. Worse luck, they met other
members of the gentry just outside and gave them
reason for retracing their steps. Then, rather than
let our whole party go by default, we admitted some
of the villagers not so “nice " who were loitering
shamelessly about the building.
The Russians began their “Rojestvo " at three
A. M. with the ringing of the church bells and a
service. I enjoyed the bells only — in bed! I was
awakened a few hours later by a peculiar sound that
seemed at first like the music of bag-pipes. It was
Christmas music sung by several children in the
rooms of my landlord. They soon came into my
room, faced my icon, an image such as all good
Russians hang high up in a corner of every room,
and sang, bowing to the icon, and twirling a little
wheel, made to represent the Star of the East, and
decorated with bright bands of paper and pictures
of the old Emperor and Empress. Later in the
morning I called on some of the villagers. I found
116
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
them all dressed in their best clothes, abjuring all
work whatsoever, and entertaining their kinsfolk
and friends around the tea table. Their cakes, of
many kinds, were made from sugar saved from ra-
tions over a long period, and, in the houses of the
rich, of sugar bought privately from Allied sources.
Their Christmas was not done up in any hurry.
There were the first, the second, the third, the fourth
days — clear, unadulterated holidays! On the third
day, the day after Christmas, came the big fête for
the children of the village, held that year in the large
hall of the Y. M. C. A. building at Kola Station; in
the evening was a spectacle (Russian play), and from
midnight to seven in the morning was a grand ball.
All the dances at this time of the year are mas-
querades. A dozen or two masked friends will call
on you at any hour of the night and request the
pleasure of dancing in your house. They resemble
bears, donkeys, fish, brigands and cut-throats. You
ask if they are good people. They reply they are.
They dance violently and recklessly —- as the crea-
tures they resemble might disport themselves ; you
give them to eat and to drink; they move on to an-
other house. The tree (Yolka) is the important
thing for grown-ups as well as for children. I saw
several men bringing their tree from the hillside on
the First Day of Christmas. This same day they
also decorate it. On the following day, after the
Christmas morning service, they light it with the tiny
church candles they have brought home with them.
It remains by law for two weeks; the children pray
SUNLESS KOLA
117
clamorously to have it remain longer, and to the joy
of all it remains another week.
So Christmas is over, the big holiday of the year;
and none too important in sunless Kola, as a means
of keeping the children and the grown-ups happy in
the dark winter months. Everybody seemed sorry
to have Christmas all over; there came no sigh of
relief to these folks at the end of their holiday
engagements, as comes to us who plan Christmas
more ambitiously. Their efforts for Christmas are
natural; they take time to enjoy their Christmas.
The Allied military control would not allow the
Russians working for them to take off their usual
number of days to celebrate on; thus was the cor-
ruption of civilization felt that Christmas at Kola.
But the chief Christmas customs of the people were
observed in spite of the presence of a higher civil-
ization. I doubt if any Czar or any Lenin could
suddenly obliterate these. Next Christmas may be
a Bolshevik Christmas in Kola, but it will differ
little from the one I saw there. Such holiday cus-
toms of the people will prevail, pretty much un-
changed, for some time to come, whoever makes the
decrees at Moscow. A month after Christmas will
come a weck when all feast and eat bleenies (griddle
cakes). Then will come Lent, when all religious
Russians fast rigidly. There will come in its turn
the Day of the Baptism when the priest, followed by
the whole village, will take the chief icon of the
church along a path marked by cut fir trees, to the
river, and here, under a canopy specially erected,
118
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
the priest will dip the icon through a hole that has
been cut in the ice, into the running water — all as
a symbol of renewing life, of the perennial washing
away of the old.
So every year Russia shakes off her old sins, and,
in hope, in freshness, looks to the future. Habits
of faith in the Russian people like this one will never
be rooted out. Russia will be clean some day. And
then may she help some of the other people who cling
more fondly to their past, and consequently have
less faith in their power to renew themselves.
JOHN BULL IN NORTH RUSSIA
Arctic Russia was a strange country for twenty
thousand or more English soldiers to be set down in; 1
but it was only a short time before they had made
the place theirs. Too lazy to learn Russian, they
made themselves understood with interpreters. To
lend dignity to this indirect communication the in-
terpreters were made sergeants. I knew three pri-
vates who obtained stripes in this way. I saw half a
village evacuated for troops, and to increase the
accommodations, rows of wooden shacks with walls
of two thicknesses filled with dirt, hastily built.
Stoves were brought in, bunks built. Orders were
issued to keep everything and everybody sanitary.
So many men were detached for the fuel service, so
many for the water service. My Y. M. C. A. hut
in Kola village was furnished promptly with wood
and water as one of the army institutions. The
water-man's sled covered with ice rapidly forming
as the water spilled over the side of the barrel, came
creaking to our back door about nine in the morning.
The officers were a cheerful lot of fellows, all fit.
As soon as they arrived in the place, they were think-
ing of shooting and skiing. There wasn't much
game in our immediate vicinity, but officers coming
new to the place would go out with their guns some
119
120 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
morning to make sure of this fact. Skiing remained
excellent all winter. Little snow fell, but this never
melted once till April. Although two hundred miles
within the Arctic Circle, thanks to the influence of
the Gulf Stream, the average temperature, Fahren-
heit, was above zero, and Kola Bay always lay before
us as an unfrozen feature of the place. The officers
often went back and forth on skis between Kola
Station and the village, army headquarters. They
wore sweaters under their tunics, a long woolen scarf,
a handsome fur hat, but generally no overcoat.
Their buttons, belt, and boots glistened. They
should have impressed the population. They did
outclass the Italian officers who in appearance are
not easy to distinguish from their soldiers.
The chicf task of the officers, up there 500 miles
from the front, was to look after their men. This
they did well, for the most part. They were solicit-
ous, too, that Tommy should have his entertainment;
otherwise he might become discontented. At first
some C. O.'s were lukewarm, if not hostile, to the
efforts of the Y. M. C. A., but in time the sort of
service rendered by the Y. M. C. A. came to be
appreciated; so much so, in fact, that a welfare offi-
cer was appointed for the district and attached to
the general staff.
The evenings were long, especially so to the officers,
who did not have to rise early. In midwinter lamps
were lighted from three to four o'clock. Tea came
at four-thirty; a good dinner, with abundant liquor,
at seven-thirty, prepared by tested soldier-cooks.
.
JOHN BULL IN NORTH RUSSIA
121
a
The officer messes could procure certain extras from
the Army Service Corps such as plum pudding,
canned vegetables and fruits. After dinner was a
game of cards or conversation enlivened with a gram-
ophone. The choice of the evening's diversion lay
with the C. 0. (commanding officer). If he wished
to play bridge, bridge it was; if he preferred to go
out skiing in view of the northern lights or the north-
ern moonlight, with the Russian women, his officers
must accompany him.
Occasionally there was a dance for officers at
Kola Station in the Y. M. C. A.'s huge building,
erected by aid of the soldiers, and kept warm by
eight brick ovens. At first these dances were held
on Sunday evening, following the Russian customs,
but when the Yorks came into camp, their chaplain
put his foot down and declared the Russians should
observe Sunday in our way, not we in theirs. The
Italians outshone the English in dancing; they
danced with each other if there were not girls enough
to go round; few of the English danced. The most
memorable of these affairs was the masquerade party
after the Russian Christmas celebrations were over,
when the inhabitants appeared in clever disguises
and in their merriest mood. Captain P- was so
enthralled by one of the disguised fair ones that he
took her to his shack between dances and offered her
chocolate, the greatest luxury to the Russian ladies.
But when he gallantly tried to kiss her, she unmasked
and showed herself a soft-voiced boy of nineteen.
These Englishmen talked chicfly about their war
122 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
SALE
p
ty
2 Omot meme
experiences in France. They were not particularly
concerned to know why the government was keeping
them in Russia after the armistice. One officer, irri-
tated at the time upon receiving news that his
battalion should move on as reënforcements to Arch-
angel, exclaimed: “ This expedition is nothing but a
capitalists' scheme to get a hand on the mines of
Russia” (as it happens there are rich mineral de-
posits all untouched in the hills around Murmansk).
This remark came more or less off the top of the
brain, but the following remark of another officer
was well considered: “ Of course I know very well
what we are here for. I, as an English officer, am
here in the interest of England, in the interest of
England's prosperity. For I am a regular-army
man: we cannot have an army without money, and
we as a nation cannot have money without an army
to fight for it.” “ But," I asked, “ do you believe
the Italians and French are here also in the financial
interest of their countries ? " “ Certainly,” he re-
sponded. “And how about the Americans? " I put
the question; “ don't you believe in the sincerity of
Wilson with his fourteen points?” “Very likely
he is sincere," replied the officer; “perhaps our
Lloyd-George is sincere also, but, when all is said,
we know our politicians are only the tools of our
business men, the real rulers." There was no beat-
ing about the bush with this man, no phrase-making.
He, like many others, believed that the way to settle
the Russian question was by force.
They considered the Russian too weak to decide

Thesap tayo
S
JOHN BULL IN NORTH RUSSIA
123
his own destinies. This notion that certain people
are born without capacity for self-government is not
a stock idea of English military men alone. Mr.
Dillon, a well-known English writer about Russia,
has written a book of 700 pages to prove that the
Russian is not fit for self-government. I had this
Mr. Dillon quoted to me. He was a convenient
authority at the moment. Convenient authorities
have been found to prove the Irish, the Indians, the
Egyptians unfit for self-government.
They told me the Russian was no fighter, that that
fact was made clear in the war. They told me the
Italians were cowards. They reported that one of
the American regiments at Archangel was below par
because made up of Detroit immigrants, and that
for this reason the English at Murmansk were
obliged to send over reënforcements to Archangel.
There were four thousand Italians at the Kola
camp under a major of their own, but subject to
suggestions of the English C. 0. Only one English
C. 0. was ever really successful in maintaining the
entente cordiale with them. His secret as told to one
of his subalterns was this: “I find it best to give
way in all small matters, and in any important mat-
ter the Italians will be rather happy than not in see-
ing my way of looking at it.”
Tommy rose above his environment almost as
heartily and as irrepressibly as his officer. The
soldiers were getting enough to cat that winter,
though they told me that the previous summer they
were working hard on less than half rations. The
124 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
British army rations were uniformly good. The
cereal, bacon, jam and cheese were never an inferior
article. By Christmas, all the winter clothing for
the troops had arrived. Their high white hats faced
with black fur were imposing. Every soldier was
required to wear the Shackleton arctic boots, but
the warmest foot-wear for that climate to my think-
ing were valenkis, the felt boots worn by the inhabit-
ants. Tommy had almost as little use for the Rus-
sian as his officer. His chief relation to the natives
was to “ skolko," the Russian term meaning “how
much.” In the beginning a brisk trade sprang up in
cigarettes and rum, the Russians' supply of these
articles being just what they could obtain from the
army. The evil increased till made the subject of an
army order threatening “skolkoers” with loss of
leave to England (there had been no lcave up to that
time).
The men were thinking of England much more
than of Russia. Mail day was the big day; then
there was something more pleasant than routine to
think about. Everybody wanted to go home. For
this reason, and for any other imaginable, as always
where John Bull plants himself, the men groused
(i. e., complained) and groused, using the same
idioms for this purpose that I heard at the officer
messes. Their complaints were generally criticisms
of administrative acts that directly concerned them;
they seldom showed any interest in war causes and
results, and very little interest in the progress of
the peace-treaty; Editor Bottomly's anecdotal in-
1
(D
JOHN BULL IN NORTH RUSSIA 125
terpretation of current events satisfied them. Now
and again one would hear a soldier remark succinctly
and conclusively that when Russia paid over her debt
to Great Britain, then they would be jolly well glad
to leave that damned country. Stories of Bolshevik
atrocities were readily credited. That Pandora tale
of the nationalization of women, which was going
the rounds of America and Europe, was doing duty
up there also, being printed and distributed among
all the soldiers. Other propaganda stuff was put
before them. In among magazines sent out to the
troops just about election time were hundreds of
leaflets of The National Democratic Labor Party,
lauding the government. One heard little of any
cry“ On to Petrograd!” there was no genuine desire
to fight the Bolsheviks. The remark was current
that it would be a shame to lose one's life fighting
the miserable Bolsheviks, after getting out of the
Great War safely.
WHAT THE ALLIES ACCOMPLISHED
IN NORTH RUSSIA
It was a blind alley the expedition to North Russia
led into! The soldiers felt that they had been shoved
off civilization upon this cold and dark end of the
universe and forgotten. And some of the officers
felt that all their efforts were certain to be frus-
trated. We in the Y. M. C. A. were busy dissem-
inating good cheer at canteen counters and on en-
tertainment stages, but in the course of it all there
was for us as detached and somewhat independent
persons, perhaps an exceptional opportunity of talk-
ing straight and honestly with different ranks, with
representatives of the different Allied corps, and
for those of us who spoke mutilated Russian — with
the military and civilian Russians.
It was natural for members of the expedition to
wonder about the reasons of the Supreme Council of
Ten in keeping them in Russia after the armistice.
Some thought they were there to ensure payment of
Russia's debts to England and France. Others,
especially officers, frankly concluded that it was to
restore “ order” to “ distracted ” Russia.
The Allies landed at Murmansk on the invitation
of the local Soviet. This silly Soviet was forth-
with excommunicated by the Moscow All-Russian
Soviet, and, shortly after, was shown the door by its
126
WHAT THE ALLIES ACCOMPLISHED 127
whilom guests. At Archangel, according to the tes-
timony of Mr. Young, formerly British Consul there,
the invitation to land was obtained after the Allies
had taken the place and nominated a provisional
government that should invite them. Then this
complaisant body also quickly learned its standing
by being kidnapped by some Russian militia and
taken to an island in the White Sea, with the con-
nivance, it was rumored, of certain elements of the
Allied High Command. The American Ambassador
forced the return of this government, but the work-
men of Archangel went on a strike as a protest
against the abduction. American soldiers helped to
put down this strike, and all subsequent strikes, of
which there were many.
The Americans at Archangel had to do many
things which they considered absolutely antithetical
to the spirit in which they were supposed to have
come into Russia. Frazer Hunt, who visited this
front as correspondent of The Chicago Tribune,
wrote that this was because the Americans were under
British command. Even the Bolsheviki knew that
the Americans had a different attitude toward the
Russians from the British. A dough-boy who had
spent the winter at Archangel told me that the Bol-
sheviks would often refrain from attacking the
Yanks, for some such reason. Once, he related,
when the English relieved Americans from a post held
by the latter for several weeks, during which the
Bolsheviks had not fired a shot, the Reds made a
strong attack that very night.
128 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
At first there was considerablc friction in the Mur-
mansk district between the British command and the
Y. M. C. A., which was then directed by Americans.
The American workers were accused of spreading
American propaganda. The object of our relief
and educational work for the Russian population was
misconstrued. One British officer losing his temper
exclaimed to one of the Y. M. C. A. officials: “ Well,
perhaps consciously you are not doing any propa-
ganda work, but just the same your government is
using you as its agents." This incident is one illus-
tration of the sensitiveness of the “ army mind” to
propaganda. Several such incidents impressed it
upon me that the British army man in this war recog-
nized the power and value of ideas and motives. The
friction between the Italian and English officers was
marked also; their mutual distrust and dislike was
general. These international jealousies were silly,
and sound doubly so in print several thousand miles
away, months later, but they, nevertheless, were un-
deniably a vital factor in the lives of the troops and
in the effectiveness of the expedition.
The Bolshevik Finns who had escaped out of Fin-
land with the German White Guard at their heels
and had taken refuge with the Allied troops in the
Murmansk district, presented a dilemma. They
were promised when they came that the Allies would
help them drive the Germans out of Finland. But
when after the armistice the Allics supported the
same White Finns that had called in German aid to
put down the Finnish working people, explanation
S
WHAT THE ALLIES ACCOMPLISHED
129
to our Finnish Legion was awkward. The Finns
went on a strike in March, intending to go back to
Finland. General Maynard informed them that in
order to avoid bloodshed he would not oppose their
departure, but that any individuals found returning
would be treated as deserters. After this the matter
was patched up for the time.
But the friction that counted most was the grow-
ing hostility of the Russian soldiers and the Russian
people to the expedition. The out-and-out Bol-
sheviks were put under arrest at once. I came to
know the officer given charge of them. He explained
that they were maintained as a gang of workmen-
prisoners to do the hardest labor on the Murmansk
quay. If they failed to carry out any orders, they
were lashed. An Allied soldier went beside each
prisoner and saw to it that he “worked.” Learning
all this I ventured a suggestion to the officer. “ Such
a waste of time for the guards; why couldn't the sol-
diers work with the prisoners?” He promptly re-
turned: “ Gad, the Tommy wouldn't do that heavy
work; they come out here as soldiers, not as a labor-
battalion.”
Russians who were objectionable to the military
were likely to be dubbed Bolshevik. A British officer
described how two Russians at Ksuffered from
this practice and his story was later corroborated by
our Y. M. C. A. representative at K- The
army owed both these Russians large sums on lumber
contracts and apparently for no other reason they
found themselves accused of being Bolsheviks. It
130 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
was made so hot for one of them that he had to
leave town without collecting his debt.
General Maynard hated the sight of a “ damned
Russian” and would not have one in his office if he
could help it. This was the attitude of some of the
best officers. Generally the natives were treated by
the British officers as inferiors, although in some
quarters there were attempts made to please the
populace. Many of those who disliked the Russian
were happy enough to dance with his daughters;
moreover, they were quite put out if the Russian
notabilities declined to come to the officer soirées,
as was sometimes the case. I heard often an observa-
tion, common under such circumstances, that “ the
Russian women are so much finer than the Russian
men, you know!” In one village it was definitely
one of the duties of the interpreter, an English ser-
geant, to call upon the families in a cheerful, friendly
way; at headquarters' mess they used to joke about
this diplomatic offensive, but I doubt if many
Russians were taken in by it. The Italians and the
French mixed more readily with the population than
the English, and picked up quite a smattering of the
language.
Once there in the country that great illusion re-
garding Russia that the people were waiting to be
delivered and would flock by the thousands to our
standard, was quickly dissipated. The officers and
N. C. O.'s who were sent out purposely to train
Russian recruits had to be assigned to other tasks:
the local population in 'no sense ever rallied to us.
WHAT THE ALLIES ACCOMPLISHED 131
When this fact was realized, it was decided to mob-
ilize the Russian men of the district. Of the con-
scripts I knew, some Bolsheviks and some non-Bol-
sheviks intended to walk over to the enemy whenever
the chance offered. Accordingly, the revolt of Rus-
sians at Onega the following summer was not a sur-
prise to me, Americans who were at Archangel till
mid-summer declared a majority of the Russian
troops had gone over to the Red Army.
Over at Murmansk I heard often of the Bolshevik
atrocities at Archangel, but the men from there I
asked about atrocities were pretty unanimous in
denying that they existed. A prosperous merchant
at Kola with whom I dined occasionally averred that
the only way to settle Russia was to kill every Bol-
shevik. “ Every Bolshevik?" I expostulated.
“ Every Bolshevik!" was his firm answer. There
was atrocity in this man's mind, but I don't believe
he would actually commit one.
A few people like this merchant, who were pros-
pering during the foreign occupation, feared what
might happen to them and their property if the for-
eign armies were withdrawn, but many Russian mod-
erates were by degrees losing confidence in the Allies
there as they saw them taking counsel chiefly with the
reactionary elements of the population. One prom-
inent citizen at Murmansk who had been delighted to
see the Allies land confided to a friend of mine that
since he had seen how the Allies treated the Russians,
he doubted if there was much to choose between them
and the Bolsheviks. And yet this fellow, belonging
132 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
to another Russian party, hated the Bolsheviks
cordially.
As for the Bolsheviks themselves, they kept quiet.
And for some reason I could not get bourgeois Rus-
sians to tell me who the Bolsheviks of the village were.
Ultimately, however, two good acquaintances who
held positions of trust in the village, acknowledged
themselves to me bona fide Bolsheviks.
HONEY LOU
AN IMAGINARY ADVENTURE AMONG
THE LAPPS
66 Through the wilds of Lapland in a snow-dipping
caryosa," is the way Major M- , Evangelist, be-
gan his story of a drive to a Lapp village. The
country had no striking effect of wilderness upon me
and I didn't ride in a caryosa; I was driven in a
roughly but strongly constructed sled already loaded
with a month's rations for the driver. My driver
apologized for his team of four reindeer even before I
saw it: they were too old. He had thirty reindeer,
all but these four too young to carry a sled: he was
a poor Lapp. There are Lapps with several thou-
sand reindeer; these fellows are not only rich Lapps,
they are rich men; a reindeer this winter (1918-19)
is worth 90 dollars. My young driver had just re-
turned from fighting in Roumania a year before and
he proceeded to tell me a little about it as we slipped
on through the falling snow (I cannot say “ dashed,
raced or hurtled through the earth's new white
blanket” as would the Major; for it was hard go-
ing: a warm day, new snow and wet snow). We had
to jump off and walk at each incline and we made
several stops to let the reindeer breathe and the
driver smoke.
133
134. SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
Our journey was across a wide plateau between
two river-valleys, from the Russian town of Kola to
the Lapp village of Kildensky Pagost. The driver
prodded his deer constantly with a fifteen-foot pole
and sometimes ran up behind and shouted at them.
That kept them moving. We went down all hills at
top speed, skirting rocks and bushes; I kept myself
on the sled only by being braced; at such times the
driver sang out something like
“Mookie bearlie, sarkar, chai,
Mookie bearlie, sarkar, chai,
Mookie bearlie "
A
a soldiers' song, he said. Finally we had the second
valley in view across a lake. * How do you get
around this lake in summer? " I asked. “We don't
live here in summer," he replied. “We fish on the
inlet near Murmansk in summer. I don't, myself; I
tend reindeer on the tundras twenty versts to the east
of here, where they feed.”
Upon our arrival at the village, all the shaggy
wolf-dogs came out and yelped ill-manneredly at me
as the driver took me to the higgledy-piggledy house
where I was to stay for the night. In the corner of
the first room was an open fireplace where metre-
sticks of wood standing on end, blazed cheerily.
Through the window I could see similar blazes in
neighboring huts or houses; I could see also brawny
women chopping wood out-of-doors at the wood-pile.
Except for this open fire everything in the place was
HONEY LOU
135
a consumptive Lapp and his wife. The sccond room,
reached only through the first, was fully occupied by
two and a half families. A large oven stood in one
corner; in two corners were wide curtain beds. I
put down my bag and bed-roll in the remaining cor-
ner, where there was a wooden wall-seat and the din-
ing-table. The evening meal followed immediately.
The Lapps had their songa (fish), plenty of bread,
and tea made with boiling water from an unburnished
samovar (you do not find unpolished samovars in
well-regulated Russian households !). My host and
hostess accepted without a murmur of my jam and
biscuits, and, although it was the first week of the
long fast before Easter, the host made good inroads
into my bully-beef; scarcely any of my offerings were
passed on by man and wife to the subordinate mem-
bers of the household.
The subordinate members of the household were,
as I learned by asking, a small adopted daughter,
the sister-in-law and her husband of two weeks, and
another sister-in-law. This unmarried sister-in-law,
Anna, spoke Russian excellently and had that native
refinement which always accompanies generous high
spirits. I say she had high spirits. She did not
display them particularly as I saw her, but never-
theless I know she had them, although at the time
she seemed not to enjoy her good health, was very
pale. I felt her looking sharply at me at times, as
if the way I acted and talked struck a deep chord in
136
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
her. She said little during tea. The young hus-
band talked most. He wanted to tell me he had been
in the big cities of Russia, in Moscow and Petrograd
- had stopped over three days in Moscow when re-
turning from his service in the army: it was a beau-
tiful city, the women there were attractive ; his wife
did not relish this last remark. 4 And there is no
such frost and winter there!” I said. “Shouldn't
you rather spend the winter in Moscow than here?”
There was no hesitation in his reply, no weighing of
pros and cons: “ I should enjoy winter here, most.
I am used to this winter; I like it.” “Better than
summer, here?” I asked again. “Yes, I like our
winter better than our summer!”
After tea the hozian (master of the house) de-
parted to spend the night several miles off where his
reindeer were herded. The three sisters began at
once to sew skins industriously. Out of small pieces
of fur they were making the handsome high boots
that sold in Murmansk for 40 dollars a pair. The
fur was matched very carefully and cut clean for
the seam; they used strong thread, drawn off from
one of four large skeins hanging on a rod over the
oven. The young husband sat very close to his
wife, and now and again they whispered to each
other in the Lapp language. Anna observed them
each time they whispered out of the corner of her eye,
just as I was doing.
As I had come into the village I was wishing I had
brought with me a gramophone the better to enter-
tain both the Lapps and myself during the evening.
HONEY LOU
137
Imagine my surprise and delight to notice, on reach-
ing to the floor to pick up a scrap of skin that had
dropped from Anna's lap, a gramophone and some
records resting on a small shelf built between the
legs of the table.
“Ah, you have a gramophone,” I exclaimed to
Anna. “ The very thing! Let us play it!”
“ No," she said, simply, “no!"
“But, Anna,” her older sister remonstrated, “ you
know you do play it every evening !”
Anna resented her sister's interruption. “Well,
never mind, I don't want to play it to-night!"
Not only my particular curiosity as to her reasons
for not allowing us to have the gramophone music
then, but also my general curiosity about this girl,
were now thoroughly aroused. I could not press the
point further then, but I resolved to find out some-
thing about this mysterious, sad girl, who, with her
native refinement, seemed rather out of place there
in that rough Lapp village.
I was restless; I am accustomed after dinner to
expect something especially diverting; I wanted
something to happen so that my evening in a Lapp
village might be the more memorable. Accordingly,
I got up and went out into the other room of the
house, where I found the consumptive man and his
wife, a strongly-built termagant. He, like hen-
pecked men generally, was most genial, and what with
the conversation and the warmth and the cheeriness
of the fire, I felt better. Some villagers had mean-
time passed through into the big room, giving me my
138 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
opportunity for the sort of entertainment I was
after, and I hopefully went back to the inner room,
undid my bed-roll, and took out candy, soap, cigar-
ettes, and sugar. I gave away some biscuits and
candy, and sold more. I gave each child who came
in a bright, red English primer, full of little colored
pictures.
The whole village was soon dribbling into the
room; the men were smoking my cigarettes and spit-
ting noisily and incessantly on the floor. Then I
brought out from my rucksack pocketbooks, gloves,
flannel shirts, chains, and buttons, an odd assortment
which I had carried in my travels far enough. For
two and three roubles each my little objects quickly
disappeared and so did the money of the Lapps.
Anna purchased one of several English coins I was
selling as souvenirs. Then I announced clearly that
it was skins, skins ! that I wished to trade for. There
was that most excellent flannel shirt from New York,
and in addition twenty-five packets of cigarettes to be
had for a pair of good reindeer-skin gloves. A pair
of good reindeer-skin gloves appeared, and succes-
sively three reindeer skins as well as several pairs of
slippers, plain, with colored-thread markings, and
one pair of baby slippers; for all of which I paid
with sugar and cigarettes. But no fur hat had been
produced. I saw one I coveted on the head of the
boy who had sold me a pair of slippers for 40 packets
of cigarettes.
His mother had brought back the cigarettes in a
cloth and thrown them in a heap on the floor with
HONEY LOU :
139
dark mutterings; I did not understand what she said;
notwithstanding, I had felt myself unqualifiedly the
unscrupulous trader who had taken advantage of a
boy's vicious craving for cigarettes, especially in the
eyes of Anna, who continued to sew skins: so I had
presented to the mother the slippers with a careless
shrug of my shoulders. In twenty minutes the boy
was back with a skin for which I again had paid the
heap of cigarettes lying on the floor, and which I
discovered afterward was almost worthless. An-
other boy sold me a fish which my cook would serve
only to the cat. Wicked, avaricious people, the
Lapps!
My great desire now was to get a hat somehow!
I gave one good look at my signet ring and one long
thought to the dear aunt who gave it to me for a
graduation present, and then told the boy to take the
ring home to his mother and see if she would give his
hat for it. He came back with the ring on his
finger; the hat was soon on my head; the regular
300-rouble sort of brown, soft young reindeer-skin
hat with long fur strings at the sides, tipped with
white fur; it was mine! I bought another fur hat,
not so handsome but more à la mode, for the two
blankets that I had brought in my sleeping-roll,
delivery the following morning. I promised the coat
on my back to my hostess for her husband, in the
face of a competition of flattering offers. And fi-
nally the limit to my salable commodities being prac-
tically reached, I sat back among my cleverly-pur-
chased furs to enjoy their luxuriousness. How
140 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
could I have spent a more exciting evening in Kil-
densky Pagost!
During all the time of my trading, however, I had
felt the quiet presence of Anna: to her, undoubtedly,
I appcared the guilty speculator I was; certainly she
took me for a despicable merchant; that I hadn't
traded with rum was only because I was unable to
get it, she probably thought. After the trading,
Anna left the house in the company of a girl of her
own age, and so gave me the opportunity to learn
her history in the village; in fact, opportunity was
already knocking on the door in the person of a lady
of fifty who was scated at the table ncar me, fingering
an unsold pair of gloves of mine (how could any
Lapp have respect for my glossy factory gloves when
the Lapp gloves were so much warmer and prettier?).
This lady wore the old Russian, brightly-colored
hat, covered in front with a beaded pattern; from
her belt hung her keys, her scissors, her thimble, and
short strings of beads. Of course, she was only too
glad to be my informant.
During the winter and till two weeks before, there
had been stationed at Kildensky Pagost a British
officer, Captain Sen I was already acquainted
with this fact; I had been told at Kola headquarters
how this officer had been detailed to this village with
orders to keep the Lapps in the neighborhood
friendly to the Allies, and, in case of need, to use
Lapp scouts for getting quick intelligence of any
advance of the cnemy. I had been told also what
fine things Captain
S h ad done for the Lapps,
1
HONEY LOU
141
and how, as a consequence, he ruled over them like a
king: he had kept his Lapps well-supplied with food;
he had broken up an epidemic that once threatened
the village, giving what medical attention to its vic-
tims he could, himself; he had learned a lot of both
the Lapp and the Russian languages, and had taught
the children English. Anna was his active lieuten-
ant in all his work, so it now appeared from my gos-
sip's story and probably his inspiration, as well!
Indeed the captain spent most of his evenings in this
very room of mine host and beside this very table.
Their language studies weren't of a tedious nature
evidently. Captain S- had a Decker gramo-
phone, and for an hour or two every evening it was
going steadily. The villagers flocked in, and some-
times the young folks danced there. The captain
was as fond of the machine music as the Lapps, and
would have played even more than he did, so my dis-
cerning gossip assured me, except that he had dis-
covered that the only way he could get time more or
less alone with Anna was to stop the gramophone
regularly in the middle of the evening; after that he
and Anna chatted by themselves in a mixture of
Lapp, Russian, and English words.
Well, now Captain Sr was gone. I happened
to know how reluctant headquarters were to have him
leave Kildensky, even then when there was no danger
of military action in that quarter; the sort of
thing he did there was a rare picce of good work;
having created in a widening circle among all the
Lapps of the peninsula an amicable understanding
PI
142 SKETCHES OF SOVIET STS
RUSSIA
ment I have thought 181r); my in.
with the Allied forces. But Captain S said he
was sick and must go to England, and the doctor
said that the captain was much sicker than he ad-
mitted and that the proper treatment for his illness
could only be given in England. After his departure
from the village, Anna was not the same girl; my in-
formant whispered that she thought the girl was
sick; from the moment I had set eyes upon her, Anna
had impressed me as being a sick woman.
The newly-weds began to retire within their cur-
tained bed and the last lingering guests departed.
The hozeaka went to bed and pulled her curtains. I
made a soft bed for myself on the floor on top of my
skins, and got inside my bed-roll. But I could not
go to sleep. The strong tea I had drunk in large
quantities, or the excitement of the bartering, or
vivid patches of the gossip's story, something it was
that kept me staring awake! I watched the moon-
light play over the unfamiliar objects of the room.
About twelve o'clock Anna returned and made up her
bed of skins on the floor, as far as possible from
mine, but still so near I could hear her breathing.
The consumptive in the outer room began coughing
and coughed all night. Before I fell asleep - I
think that it was about three o'clock - I had deter-
mined upon one additional piece of bargaining in the
Lapp village. Immediately after morning tea I pro-
ceeded to complete this transaction.
“ Anna,” I said, pointing to the instrument, “I
should like to purchase this gramophone. They tell
me it is yours.”
HONEY LOU
143
“ Yes, it is mine, but I do not want to sell it.”
“ But I wish a Decker gramophone like yours very
much; there isn't one on the market in all North
Russia. I am willing to pay you a good price."
“ There is no price you could name that would
induce me to sell."
“ You have in mind the prices I was offering last
night for furs! When I really want something I am
not stopped by a price; I am an American!”
“ You look like an Englishman!"
“ Anna, I will give a thousand roubles!”
“ A thousand roubles isn't much this year."
“ Two thousand roubles, then! Twenty-five hun-
dred roubles! You can go a long way on that!”
“ You are joking. You are throwing away your
money!”
“I'm not joking. I want that gramophone more
than a little!”
“Why this one?" Anna was watching me
closely.
I did not wince under her examination. « Because
I want it. You know what caprice is!”
“ Yes, I know what caprice is. You will really
pay twenty-five hundred roubles ?" Anna was cal-
culating something more than roubles in her small
head, I thought.
“Yes," I said, “I will pay you the money this
morning."
“You may have the gramophone for twenty-five
hundred roubles !"
“ And how much may I have the records for?
144
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
You aren't letting them go with the machine, even
for so handsome a price, are you?”
“I never thought about the records. You will
not want them! They will be of no use to you.
They are badly scratched. You can get new records
at Murmansk.”
“ That's where you are entirely mistaken: it is
almost impossible to get records here in North Rus-
sia now.”
“I will not sell the records !"
“Yes you will — for a thousand roubles ? "
“You are a queer man. I noticed that last night
when you were buying the skins. You became very
much excited about it, didn't you? Are all Amer-
icans like you? I never saw one before!”
“Well! which question shall I answer?"
“Why were you so much excited last evening?
Your eyes were on everybody and everything!"
“Oh, I don't know!” I wanted to reply - as I
always want to reply to such a typical Slav question
_” That's wholly my affair!” “May I have the
records,please!”
“Yes, all except one!”
65 And may I ask which record is that!”
6 Why, I don't see that it should make any differ-
ence to you! It's a song called 'Honey Lou'!”
This was evidently S- 's favorite record. I
knew the music; as music it had no merit; I would
wager a good deal that, half-civilized Lapp though
she was, Anna's favorite record would have ten times
the musical virtue.
HONEY LOU
145
“ If it is 'Honey Lou’!" I exclaimed with feigned
ecstasy, “I will give you two hundred roubles for
the record. It is a splendid song, isn't it?”
“I am not used to thinking such music fine, but
you English and Americans are, I suppose! It may
not be a fine record; but I don't intend to sell it; my
caprice, you see! Besides it's the most scratched
record of the lot!”
“ Don't be sentimental,” I said slowly and in a
tone different from any I had previously used with
Anna; “ for that record I will give you 200 roubles,
and, in addition, all the skins I purchased last night.
I'll have to pay you part with skins because I haven't
the whole price in cash left here with me!”
“You are a rash trader! I have seen Russians
and Lapps trade in such a spirit, but I do not under-
stand your caprice at all!” She looked me straight
in the eyes as if trying hard to understand.
“ There you are! All these skins, the profits of
my whole expedition!” I picked up my skins one by
one and arrayed them on her person and about her
chair and the table. I laughed and she smiled: it
was a bargain! And the excitement of this single
piece of bartering was as much greater than that of
all the bartering of the evening before, as was the
price greater than all the prices of the evening
before.
An hour later I was on my way returning to Kola
much more quickly than I had come, in frosty air
and over crisp snow. Three days later I was on a
boat being carefully piloted out of Murmansk har-
A
146 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
bor. A wicked time I had of it on that cargoless
boat! I had come aboard late, after the ship had
gone into midstream, to discover that my cabin-berth
had been given to another. As a consequence the
Captain declared my appearance unofficial, and dur-
ing the whole voyage I slept in the saloon, I ate in
the saloon, I was sick in the saloon, beastly sick and
cold! We had among the first-class passengers
some English officers, several Italian and American
officers, and, at the last table, seven or eight Russian
officers; these Russians were my bed-fellows on the
benches of the saloon.
The name of Captain S- I found posted on the
life-boat lists that first morning out, and I had him
pointed out to me, a tall, fair fellow! He was
dressed during the voyage carclessly in soft high
boots. He walked the deck, and swung from post to
wall inside the boat when she rocked, with an un-
conscious swank. He was freckled; he did not look
sick till you were face to face with him. All the
time he was not walking the deck, he sat next the
commanding officer at the first table, and played
cards with him and his sct.
In the middle of one evening, when our unsteady
ship sobered down a little, I rose from my recumbent
position in the particular corner of the saloon to .
which I had squatter-claim, with an idea of something
to do beyond smoking a cigarette or picking up to
read a ship’s-library dense novel of Henry James,
66 The Sacred Fount.” I went into the passage-way
and took out from my kit-bag near the stairs the
HONEY LOU
“ Decker” I had acquired at Kildensky. I placed
it on one of the saloon tables and set it going. The
cheer spread about by the clinking notes of the
gramophone was only too apparent. It had its
effect on the group of officers playing bridge and
drinking whiskies, and was, I thought, the indirect
cause of bringing their game to an accounting stage.
At the moment I saw that Captain
S w as free
from his game, I put on my costly record, “ Honey
Lou.” Instantly Captain
S c ame over to my
table and sat down beside the machine.
“Honey Lou, you know how much I love you,
Love you more and more, each passing day!
And I'm sure I'm never going to leave you long,
Or go away, far away.
Honey Lou-ou-ou-ou-ou!”
At this part of the song the needle had stuck in a
cavity in the record. I had known that it would
when I put the record on, but I did not show myself
ready to shift the needle along. In a minute Cap-
tain
S h ad reached over and done so. I was
surprised by all this rapidity of the steps in the
working out of my idea, and so was caught almost
unprepared by the Captain's sudden question, “Have
you had your "Decker' long?"
“ Why, no! only a few days."
“You bought it in Russia then -- second-hand, I
suppose.”
“Yes, and I paid a good, stiff price for it!”
“Of course you did; scarcity value !"
148 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
“ The price was robbery, about four thousand
roubles."
“ Some one was out to make a fortune out of you.
There are officers there in Russia who are making
fortunes, they say, 'skolkoing,' selling rum and jam
to the natives!”
“My vendor was no officer; she is a native, her-
self !”
“She, she! Oh, I see! In what part of the dis-
trict were you, Mr. Caldwell?”
“I was at Kola mostly!"
“ It was a Kola native you showered with your
roubles then!"
“No, I didn't purchase it at Kola; not many miles
away, though.”
“ At Kildensky Pagost?"
6 That's it! at Kildensky Pagost. She did not
want at all to sell me the machine, Captain S- "
“You think she consented to sell because you
offered so much money. With the money --!”
6 The money in this case might do more for her
sentiments than the gramophone."
“ You think she intends to follow me. I see you
know our story!"
“Yes, I think I understand it, Captain S am,
“And how was the girl when you saw her?"
“ Not in good health, I should say, Captain."
“Will you have a whisky?" he interposed.
“ No, thanks," I replied, “but I would have a
glass of port!” The waiter brought two ports.
Meantime I wound the machine up and “Honey
HONEY LOU
149
Lou” came out again for us, and again Captain
S- lifted the needle out of the dent in the record.
I was thinking how different he had probably looked
when he used to lift the needle out of the dent at
Kildensky. I could well imagine what the man was
when he was gay. Now the music had given him a
touch of melancholy; he felt my unspoken sympathy
and he opened a little of his heart to me, saying, “ I
did think I never could leave the witch,— but I did;
I must return to England to save my life, the doc-
tor said!”.
“And isn't it the only way to save hers!
Shouldn't she come away to England for the best
medical care and treatment, too?”
“I suppose so. We civilized brutes leave behind
us immoral diseases with these backward peoples, but
are too moral to leave behind the cures for them.”
“And if she does follow you and find you, you
will not allow her to regret yielding this inestimable
object for a price?"
“Don't judge me too harshly, Caldwell. I did
my best to persuade her to come with me or follow
me on close after. But she wouldn't listen to any-
thing I said. The more I urged her, the more I
wanted her to come, at the same time the more
stubborn she became: all my words only made it clear
to her, she said, that for us to be together at all in
England would be bad for me! she could not go into
my society there with me. Silly child! she
thought I might come back to Russia ; there it would
hurt nobody for us to be together. I had to leave
150 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
her talking that way. I gave her directions for
following me to England, and I gave her two letters
that will let her past the officials at Murmansk, I
think. Do you know what made her change her
mind ? "
“I don't know," I replied sincerely, “I can only
guess. Perhaps it is that her will is weaker now, or
rather the glamour of the high principle for which
she was acting, has gone, and she only feels intense
suffering ; perhaps she doubts the principle. At any
rate she is quite right in getting out of Kildensky;
she has seen too much of the world outside her native
village; she has seen her one man of the whole world,
outside."
“ She is capable of coming to find me, do you
think? »
“ Certainly she is! Those Lapp women are cap-
able of doing everything for their men; they do most
of the work; what little I was among the Lapps, I
noticed this."
“ If you had been there a longer time, as I was, for
example, you would have no doubt on that point.
The Lapp women do do everything for their men.”
“ And Anna, when you were there —?”
“Did everything for me, yes!”
“And you can do everything for her — in Eng-
land.”
“ It will be hard. My people -- of course - but
hang them; for their sakes I doubt if I should be
able to pull myself out of this disease!”
“ But, for her!”
HONEY LOU
151
“For Anna -- well, I shall leave no stone unturned
to get better!”
“ And she, for her part?"
“ Mind, she has no weak will when there's anything
to be done for me."
“ And you want her cured for yourself ? "
“ Yes, if it must be put so crudely, I do want her
cured for myself.”
“ Another question, S- ! don't answer if I am
too inquisitive: you love her just as much as if she
hadn't, as if she weren't — sick?”
“More, more! It is strange, isn't it? I would
never have believed it possible eight months ago.”
“More! even though it was she did you the in-
jury?” I was frightened at the boldness of my
question.
“It was not she who did me the injury. I will
confess it was I did her the injury — though I didn't
know it at the time. But if our both being sick —
if she were responsible for that; well, I should still
love her, and love her no less, I believe! Strange,
isn't it?"
RUSSIAN NEW-MINDEDNESS
On account of our present-day means of receiving
news by headlines and more headlines, we are gain-
ing wrong ideas about the Russians; for these head-
lines bear a message, politically-selected, perhaps, as
it drifts to us through Europe, which distorts the
character of that people. The Russians are not
cruel and bloodthirsty; they are not all Cossacks
that ride wild horses and love only to fight and plun-
der. Executions, indeed, there have been, now by
the Reds, and now by the Whites. Some one has
said that the difference between these two kinds of
political slaughter is that the killing by the Reds is
the hot vengeance of youth and the killing by the
Whites is the cold vengeance of the old. Personally
I learned of little violence while I was in Soviet
Russia, though I have no doubt the Bullitt figures
of five thousand executions in all Soviet Russia may
be true enough.
At a political meeting I saw the head of the Kazan
counter-revolutionary tribunal that had condemned
to death two young officers. I knew that these offi-
cers had been plotting the overthrow of the Bolshevik
power. The President of this bloody arm of the
Soviet power in Kazan sat several rows ahead of me,
the only man in the hall with a hat on, the only man
152
RUSSIAN NEW-MINDEDNESS
153
smoking (a fat cigar, difficult to be found in the city
at any price!). I thought to myself at the time:
“ What a heartless barbarian!” Later, taking a
position where I could study the fellow's face, I was
surprised to find it, far from being rough, rather the
face of a simple-souled idealist; surely he had not
the instincts of a murderer! The executions for
which he and other somewhat fanatical Russians were
in those days responsible were the excrescences of
what, looked at sympathetically in respect to
motives, however mistaken, might be considered as a
holy revolutionary crusade that sought not to
abridge life but to provide it more abundantly.
Many observers, especially military people I
talked with in North Russia, consider the Russian
irretrievably childish by nature, but it seems to me
that such observers misread Russian character.
What often at first appears childishness and lack
of judgment and self-government in the Russian may
on deeper analysis be found to be an entire absence of
the prejudices, artifices, and prides of western civil-
ization. His thinking, especially at the present mo-
ment, is loose and decoded.
Many hilarious stories of Russian childishness
and superstition can be enjoyed in recent periodical
literature. There is the story of the Russian man
and wife traveling from Kofkula to Tula who meet
a priest and thereupon retrace their steps to Kofkula
in order to begin their journey over again under
more auspicious circumstances. There is the story
of the confiscation by peasants of a large estate on
.
154
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
which was an artificial pond well-stocked with fish.
It was at first proposed to kill the fish for a village
feast, but the proposal that carried the day was the
one that they should let the fish escape down the
brook and be free, even as were the peasants now
themselves. Quite typical of this sort of story is
the recent yarn about the patients at a hospital in
Kief who went on a strike because the doctors re-
fused to treat all of them equally with injections
which had been the distinct privilege of the typhoid
patients.
Whatever basis for these stories there may be, one
draws the conclusion that Russian people, or Russian
peasants even, are fools, to one's own folly. Rather
than exaggerate the number of soft-headed Russians
per capita, it would be better for us to consider ab-
jectly the number of fools to be found at home. We
I have in America many who live mentally altogether
on inherited and current prejudices and shibboleths,
and not a few of this number we honor with high
office and make our mouthpieces. Moreover, we are
a people given as much as any other, perhaps, to
popular hysteria and hasty mob-action. To be sure,
we are rid of many of the superstitions of the older
civilizations. We do not, for instance, change our
direction by reason of the chance meeting with a
priest. But we stick, all the same, to certain crude
national and racial beliefs of our own that are as
illogical as corresponding beliefs that persist in
Russia or in China. That tale of the nationaliza-
tion of Russian women, which is still scdulously and
RUSSIAN NEW-MINDEDNESS
155
indecently retailed by men with reputation among
us, is an example of the barefaced crcdulity that i'c-
flects both on the intelligence and on the moral recti-
tude of some Americans.
In addition to the Russian's simplicity, by some
foreigners termed childishness, are the predominant
qualities of cagerness and tolerance, normal to the
Russian temperament, and to-day accentuated by a
flood of energy emanating from the hope and the
enthusiasm released by the revolution. On our ship
steaming from Newcastle to Murmansk, were 3000
Russians, wounded at Salonika and in France fight-
ing for the Allies, and they gave us our first taste
of the new revolutionary ardor. Always they were
singing their revolutionary songs; some one of them
was often seen reading a newspaper to a group of his
illiterate comrades; at one and the same time, two
or three self-appointed leaders would be speaking
from rostra in different parts of the boat, or groups
would be joining in heated but fistless debate. One
Russian in first-class, an ex-cavalry colonel whom
I know was an ardent monarchist at heart, went down
among the soldiers dressed in rough clothes and was
listened to with attention, though I suppose the big
majority of the men were convinced republicans.
(Speaking of old clothes, all the Americans in our
party at first rigidly observed the rule in Russia of
appearing only in undignified clothes; this was in
accordance with one of our superstitions regarding
the Bolsheviki.) Raymond Robins, chief of the
American Red Cross in Russia, tells an amazing
1
156
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
story of Russian tolerance. Speaking at Gatchina
in a hall crowded with pro-Bolshevik soldiers, he
was urging support of Kerensky and the war against
Germany. When he had finished and was going to
the door, there was a mass-movement of soldiers
toward him. He feared for his life, as they took him
on their shoulders, shouting. But the shouting, he
tells us with the wonder still in his heart, was ap-
proval of a man himself, of whose political thesis
they could not be persuaded.
My experience as an American traveling a good
deal in Russia in the summer of 1918 leads me to
confess that the Bolsheviks have on the whole sur-
prisingly good manners. I saw among the Bolshevik
commissars, clerks and railroad-men less of that
hauteur and crankiness than is usually found in
the official mind that one comes to know and dread
when traveling abroad. Perhaps these officials will
become cantankerous in time as the newness of their
task wears off, but my guess is that their fresh minds,
often sadly untrained, are not going stale in this
generation. The experience of some Y. M. C. A.
men I knew illustrates well the freshness of the ways
of the Bolshevik officials.
A party of Y. M. C. A. secretaries had been suc-
cessful in crossing the Czech lines from Samara into
Bolshevik Russia by boat along the Volga River,
and with them had smuggled through a large quan-
tity of flour, which nearly doubled in value every
hundred miles they brought it north and east. At
Jaroslav the Americans asked permission from the
RUSSIAN NEW-MINDEDNESS
157
authorities to send the flour on to Moscow, stating
that it was for use of the American Embassy, the
American Consulate at Moscow, and the Y. M. C. A.
The Bolshevik commissar of transport for the city
replied that if the flour was for the American Em-
bassy and Consulate, it would receive immediate at-
tention, would take preference to other freight, and
he, himself, would see that the matter were expedited,
but there would be a corresponding charge made;
for, he argued, the American Government was a
bourgeois government and could afford to pay well
for services rendered; on the other hand, if it were
purely a service for the Y. M. C. A., it would receive
the same immediate and preferential and personal
attention — but there would be no charge, as the
Y. M. C. A. did much for the Russian people.
Fortunately, almost everybody had a warm spot
in his heart for Americans. There was a feeling
that Americans loved freedom and would show sym-
pathy to the struggling young republic, even though
it were socialist. When we wished to get past a
guard to a train or into a building, we shouted
“ Amerikanski Meese,” (American Mission); that
failing to work, some one dug out an old certificate
signed by a well-known Bolshevik like Sverdloff,
President of the All-Russian Congress, or presented
a passport, or any other paper in Russian or Eng-
lish with a documentary appearance or a red seal
up at us respectfully and allowed us to pass. On
the other hand, the people hated the English, but, as
158
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
far as I could observe, treated them with considera-
tion. It was generally believed that certain English
and French officials were aiding the counter-revolu-
tionists. In the official Soviet newspaper one day,
I saw the story of the complicity of French and Eng-
lish in the Czecho-Slovak rebellion in the summer of
1918. In view of such facts, it was surprising to me
that foreigners were not treated more roughly than
they were.
The non-Bolshevik Russians are not discriminated
against so much as one has been led to suppose. The
fact is, that the former bourgeoisie are, in these
hungry days, the only people well fed, generally
speaking; for they may sell an overcoat or a jewel
and obtain in return the butter, chicken, and eggs
that are sold at prohibitive and speculative prices.
Many of the former officials still hold office, especially
in the country. Lenin retains the Zemstvo organiza-
tions, although they were the typical bourgeois, or
middle-class, institution of before-the-war, because he
realizes its functional value in the new state. Many
of the old Zemstvo officers remain in positions of
trust. I read daily proclamations in the newspapers
declaring the perverseness and black character of
the bourgeoisie, but whenever these proclamations
were put into effect, it was generally with a wide
latitude, and common sense, and humanity, and al-
lowances shown for the upper classes. In the
schools, at least, I believe there exists irrefutable
democracy. The children of the upper classes re-
ceive exactly the same food, instruction, and indi-
RUSSIAN NEW-MINDEDNESS
159
vidual attention as children of the present “ ruling
class."
It sounds odd to speak of anything to do with
Bolshevism as democratic, but we must beware that
we do not come to a consideration of Soviet theories
prejudiced, prepared to interpret them only in the
terms of the static forms of the so-called democratic
government of the past, forgetting that time and
change of conditions may eventually destroy the
democratic value even in such a famous instrument
of democracy, as, for example, the constitution of
the United States, itself. Lenin has said that Rus-
sia has to-day the most democratic government in
the world. One reason for this, in his opinion, is
that in Russia the people control through the Soviets
the executive, legislative and judicial branches of
the government, directly. Judges are elected, the
local Soviet makes its own laws; it is the executive,
itself; its members are commissars of labor, educa-
tion, streets, police, etc. We, for our part, may
prefer as the guiding principle in our government,
the separation of the executive, judicial, and legis-
lative powers, but, at the same time, we may be gen-
erous enough intellectually to admit that our prin-
ciple is essentially no more democratic than the Soviet
principle. It has been thought that it is the un-
representative character of the present body of
electors that makes the Soviet government undemo-
cratic; it has been thought that the present Russian
Government is a class-autocracy. The Bolsheviks
reply to this that all who do any work with hand or
160
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
S
brain among them are entitled to vote, and that idle-
ness is the only disqualification for voting. The
anti-Bolshevik Bessabarian delegate to the Supreme
Peace Council at Paris, after traveling through
South Russia, declares that he found the city people
there want Bolshevik rule and that the peasants are
unconvinced that there could be a better rule.
Judging from several such pieces of information, it
would seem that at the present time the Bolshevik
Government is this much democratic: that it is at the
least more wanted than any alternative government.
No doubt propaganda has played a large part in
increasing support for the Bolsheviks. In Kazan I
was always seeing poster-announcements of lectures
on socialism and revolution. A well-known professor
of history at Moscow gave a course of lectures on the
French revolution. I heard the most important
woman of the Bolsheviks, Kallantai, their first min-
ister of education, lecture on the subject, “ Russian
Parties " in the Workingmen's and Peasants' Hall,
once the grand concert-hall of the city, but then dis-
mantled; the pictures of royalty had been torn out
of their frames, but the frames remained unbroken
to tell the story. It was the “new-time" evening
of a hot day; the sun shone through the curtainless
west windows, and right into the speaker's face;
everybody improvised a fan; but no one wearied of
the two-and-a-half-hours performance. The artisan
family was there in its holiday clothes, comfortable
and smiling in spite of the heat; the younger element
enjoyed itself in the usual way, during the inter-
TS
RUSSIAN NEW-MINDEDNESS
161
mission (there were refreshments in the ante-cham-
ber); there was a sprinkling of former officers and
bourgeois women with curling lip. Behind me sat
the President of the Kazan Mensheviks (the Socialist
party of the extreme right). Kallantai excoriated
the Mensheviks for their treachery to the Proletariat,
and the Menshevik President, thereupon, left the hall.
Our skillful and persuasive orator next vehemently
attacked the right Social-Revolutionaries, accusing
them of wishing to set up a government like that of
America, where, she declared she knew by her own
observations, the captialists controlled votes by
manipulation of the press.
The priests are active propagandists, as a rule,
against the Bolsheviks. The priests feel keenly their
loss of power over the people since the revolution.
The church, however, has not in any real sense, been
persecuted; all church buildings are intact, and every
service of the church calendar is held without change,
the priests not recognizing the new calendar adopted
by the government, which is our calendar. At the
ancient cathedral church in the Moscow Kremlin, I
witnessed, with many other Americans, the impressive
all-night Easter service, when for the only time in
the year, all the church candles are lighted. The
Soviet at Moscow did take action to destroy one of
the most virulent religious superstitions. The Rus-
sian orthodox believing that the bodies of the saints
remain in their graves uncorrupted, the Soviet au- V
thorities disinterred publicly some of these saints'
coffins to prove to the people the emptiness of the
0
0
ziari
162
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
Vi er
1,3
***
tradition. At the village of K- , I expressed to
two Bolshevik school teachers whom I knew to be
devout and regular church attendants, my surprise
that they were good Bolsheviks and at the same time
good churchmen. They replied: “We Bolsheviks are
not against the church; we are against the priests
who for many years have robbed the people and
helped the Government to keep them down."
At Kazan in May I witnessed the ceremonies of
Kresne Hod, one of the holiest of the many holy
days. Priest and flock of every church in the city
marched with its treasured icons to the Kremlin
Square before the gates of the fortress, for the an-
nual service held there in the presence of thousands.
It was a striking picture — the broad Volga River
off several miles below under rounded hills just get-
ting green, the old painted Tartar walls of the Krem-
lin at the rear; the faithful of each congregation com-
ing from different directions to join the mass, add-
ing banner to banner, and color to color, éach band
singing, and its own church bells ringing in the dis-
tance; women in bright peasant costume in knots
here and there; squads of Red Guard soldiers carry-
pot ing bayonets, constantly passing through the mass
of people to the fortress, and, as they did so, baring
their heads respectfully, neither annoying nor being
annoyed (this was a sample of ordinary Russian
tolerance); in the center of the crowd, on a dais, the
gorgeously bedecked hierarchy of Kazan Province.
From Russia one has to go back to the Middle Ages
for such a spectacle. The Bolsheviks have taken
A
RUSSIAN NEW-MINDEDNESS
163
..
..
.minsa,
.
.
over from the church some of this appeal of the
pageant. In the proletarian celebrations is usually
a display of revolutionary banners, and there is much
revolutionary music, which draws upon the folk and
the church melodies.
The new political movement in Russia seems to
have borrowed much more than pageantry from the
church. It seems to have awakened and concen-
trated the power of faith in the people. Russians
are beginning to believe that a better life is possible
for them, and that they have in themselves the means
of making this better life. They recognize that these
desirable things cannot be had by sheer desire, how-
ever, and that as a condition precedent they must
improve both their work and their brains. That is
why they attach such importance to education, and
why there has arisen among them a feverish, and as
yet superficial, new culture. Labor magazines, and
cheap editions of the classics, and people's universi-
ties, and enlightenment societies have appeared all
over the country; even in parts which were no longer
revolutionary and had come under a counter-revolu-
tionary government, such as North Russia, I ob-
served these phenomena.
But along with the new belief of the Russian is a
skepticism on his part of the agencies of government
and enlightenment. He doggedly calls in question
the church and the old education. Oppressed so
long, he fears reënslavement. Confronted with of-
fers of help and encouragement for freedom from
outside his country, he is preternaturally suspicious.
(0
164
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
He was, I found, suspicious of the good will expressed
in the messages of President Wilson to Russia.
Coming up the Hudson River on an Atlantic liner
after two years abroad, I stood beside a young Rus-
sian girl who was seeing New York for the first time.
“ How wonderful,” she gasped, “how like a magic
city! See the steam-smoke being puffed slowly from
each building!” Then after five minutes of silence,
she declared solemnly, “I said a few minutes ago I
liked your New York. I do! But, now, I am afraid
of it, very much afraid.” What this girl felt toward
the expression of American genius, many other Rus-
sians feel. They admire, but they fear. Do they
fear that even in our wonderful civilization, boasting
of its freedom, there may not be some doors closed to
hospitality, some avenues closed to the mind, some
spaces closed to the spirit?
1
TAVARISH
Tavarish,
You crossed the lines too soon!
You should have waited for the movement of your
company
In the general revolt that is coming.
Poor fellow, you were too impatient!
Well, never mind! You're here amid your strong
Red friends,
If only for an hour.
Wounded Tavarish, drink this hot tea;
Drink to the common weal of us common Russians !
Tavarish,
You were hungry in Archangel -- the Allied base;
And they drafted you to fight your Russian
tavarishee;
And so you had to turn a gun against us -- poorly
aimed, very poorly aimed!
But the English sentry who spied you
Crossing the lines,
Creeping in the woods through the crusted snow,
Aimed well!
Drink, dying comrade, this new wine of Russian
treading,
165
166
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
That bleeding feet have pressed;
Drink to the life of the nascent republic
With all your yearning flickering desire.
Alas, Tavarish!
You will not drink
Even one toast to new Russia.
The Englishman aimed well —
Your English brother,
Toward whom you bore no grudge,
For whom you gave your life,
As well as for us —
Tough Red Guards — freezing, and starving and
singing in these far northern swamps.
Never mind, Tavarish!
For you, it is as well.
The rigors of winter, and the many woes of Russia,
For you are now done;
And the Spring of no country and every country,
Already is yours.
But, Tavarish, young lad,
One enviable thing you missed -
Perhaps you don't know —
The hearty greetings of revolutionary comrades,
The hail of their swelling songs.
You don't know how gay we keep
In our Arctic camp, Tavarish,
With a hail, and good cheer,
And a drink around,
TAVARISH: À POEM TAVARISH
167
Of the Russian new wine;
Royally hailing our republic of kings -
Long live the republic of workmen!
PART TWO
WHOLE CLOTH
WHOLE CLOTH
A DIALOGUE ON POLITICAL REALISM
CHARACTERS
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH STEKLOV, a professor.
ALEXIS PETROVICH ZOLODEEN, who has come to man-
hood during the war.
PIOTR VASSILIEVITCH SEMYONOV, a judge.
FRANK PLAISTEAD, an American.
PAVEL ANDREIVITCH ALEXIEFF, a Russian gentle-
man; known as “ Pasha.”
NICOLAI IVANOVITCH SOLKOV, an artist; known
as “ Chastleevy," which, translated, means
“happy."
BURTSEV, a waiter, also proprietor of the café.
CARL MARDINBURG, an Austrian war-prisoner.
A BEGGAR, Guests of the Café, Men of the Crowd
outside.
It is seven o'clock of an August evening in the
Zolodeen Park at Nishni Novgorod in 1918. It has
been a hot day, but now a breeze plays among the
trees. At a table in the corner of the veranda of the
Burtsev Café sit six men talking animatedly; smoking
continuously, and occasionally drinking beer or
O
171
172 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
fruit-water. Their conversation sometimes attracts
a group of listeners. From this corner of the café,
the veranda being high, one can see boats passing
on the river, and, now and then, a large steamer slid-
ing impressively into dock. Past the café, on the
path several yards away, the crowd moves in two
opposite streams, watching the war-hydroplanes at
their evening practice, and talking vivaciously. A
barefooted newsboy enters the café with the after-
noon telegram sheets. ALEXIS PETROVICH, the
youngest man at the table, buys one and reads it
eagerly with his friend at his left, MICHAIL SERGEI-
VITCH STEKLOV. This friend is a striking person,
with thick white hair, kindly wrinkles, large head,
short neck; his cheeks have good color; he wears a
low collar and a dark-red tie that becomes him well.
ALEXIS PETROVICH is fresh in face; he has a slight
figure, an oval head, abundance of curly hair, and
small but perfect features. In fact, his physical
charm is such that he is always listened to. His
family, the Zolodeens, had for years distinguished
themselves in the Czar's army, and young ALEXIS had
from the outbreak of war served as an officer of the
Guards, till in the second year he was taken to Ger-
many a prisoner. The youth, as a wave of emotion
passes over him, looks from the telegrams, cheeks
flushed.
ALEXIS
It is reported here, they have arrested Prince
Kropotkin! Kropotkin, Russia's most illustrious
WHOLE CLOTH
173
apostle of freedom! How can you defend this,
Teacher?
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
To imprison at all, is to infringe freedom. To
restrain any man seems indefensible to him, for I
suppose he has his own ideas of what he should do
and what he should not do.
EXIS
ALEXIS
I had that impressed upon me this morning when
I went out to the Breshky Hills to enjoy the view. I
found a fellow lying beside the road in the cool grass
and reading the editorials in The Red Journal.
I sat down beside him and said, “ Tavarish, why
aren't you at your work during the middle of this fine
day? "
TANDER
And why didn't the fellow reply, Alexis Zolodeen,
by asking you the same question!
!
ALEXIS
He replied: "I worked all last week and earned
one hundred roubles. May I not now enjoy myself
in the sun and in the wind! It is right that I should
work only when I need. But here in this paper of
The Party I read that there should be a new law
compelling every man to work during every labor
day, in order that the Republic may have commodi-
ties.” So this fellow in the sun and the wind,
Teacher, was thinking only of his own freedom!
174
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
Every man makes what fight for his own freedom
he can! The rich man, however, has the advantage:
his money helps him.
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
But it is a cheap freedom that is purchased by
money alone! Surely the political and the economic
freedoms are not the only ones! It's a wise man who
keeps free, free from wife, from friends; free from
the mire of books and papers !
JUDGE SEMYONOV
Free from the very struggle for freedom, free from
freedom's catchwords; who, to preserve quiet in his
own soul, is willing to accept certain transitional
servitudes which self-blindness or the blindness of
the times thrust upon him.
.
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
It appears to me that you are all talking of a
freedom that few people are interested in. A free-
dom in essence, philosophical anarchism — and here
we are, back to our topic, Prince Kropotkin!
WWW
FRANK PLAISTEAD
(An American self-made business man, with many
wrinkles for so young a man, with a firm mouth and
a piercing eye. He lives with the family of JUDGE
SEMYONOV; is engaged to the daughter, Sara
Petrovna.) About time we came down to earth! If
I am to be up in the air, I should much rather be up
WHOLE CLOTH
1175
in one of these hydroplanes! How does all this dis-
sertation on Freedom explain why these blood-
thirsty Bolsheviks should imprison a man like
Kropotkin!
JUDGE SEMYONOV
(A quick nervous man of aristocratic bearing.
Possessed of a wealthy wife. Has traveled much,
especially in England, from which he has just re-
turned.) “A man like Kropotkin!" Yet Tuesday
night, Frank, I think you were mentioning Kropot-
kin as “one of those gifted but perverse philosophers
of disorder that should be banished from the state!”
(All laugh at Plaistead, including several listeners
outside the veranda.) Kropotkin and some of us
Social-Revolutionaries suffer almost as much perse-
cution to-day as ever. I tell you this scum of the
Proletariat, by putting out of action the most
trusted leaders of the revolt in Russia, is destroying
what opportunity there was to create a brilliant
Socialist state. What finer leader of Russia's revo-
lutionary Intelligentsia for three generations than
Kropotkin! Did he not spend four years for us in
the fortress of Saint Peter and Paul!
: MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
It seems you expect me to give reasons for Kropot-
kin's arrest.
A MAN FROM THE CROWD
Tell them the reason, Professor! Down with all
Princes! Draw the blood of Counter-Revolution!
176
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
Let us remember, first, that it is only newspaper
report that Kropotkin has been arrested. If it is
true, I am sorry, I am grieved to hear it. I do con-
sider him a great son of Freedom. He has done
valiant service; he is an old warrior whose eye is now
dim and whose arm is weak. But, were he young,
there need be no apology for holding an opinion
different from his at this crisis, and, for acting upon
it! The freedom which Bolsheviks fight for —
JUDGE SEMYONOV
Do tell us, Teacher, what may be the connection
between Bolshevism and Freedom!
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
The freedom Bolsheviks seek is a narrow freedom;
at the most, but preliminary to the richer freedoms
in love and knowledge to which artists and other
eager souls devote their energies. This narrow basic
freedom is social equality.
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
There never can be equality! Some men can do;
others can't. Power goes only to those who are
born to exercise it.
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
Of course it does, Chastleevy. You believe in
force just as I do; it's the only thing that will move
Russians. If the Bolsheviks manage to keep the
upper hand, — prove to me that they are the strong-
est, and you may count me with them!
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177
JUDGE SEMYONOV
Pasha, it is easy to see that you were born with
the shrewdness to discover strength and ride behind
2
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
You are wrong, Pasha: I do not believe in force.
The artist, the man who creates, he possesses the
genuine power, but he is not bigger, not louder, not
shrewder, than the man who can't do; he just — I
might simply say — he just loves to work well!
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
Good! You and I agree, I think, Chastleevy, only
you didn't wait to understand me. Of course men
aren't equal in gifts, a fact my “ social equality"
allows for. Furthermore, I think that by taking
power from those who have usurped it by might or
chance, my “social equality ” would free men to be
more the masters of their own talents, however un-
equal these talents might be. It would strip a man
of power gained by appropriation of another's tal-
ent; it would appraise at its true value the “ shrewd-
ness to discover strength and ride behind it.” Isn't
it true that this shrewdness which exploits, and other
qualities of a second-rate mind, agility, trickiness,
hardness, mere cleverness — are, perhaps as a rule,
the factors that determine success in the competitive
capitalist order?
ALEXIS
Does what you have just said, Teacher, mean that
you would have your “ social equality" replace cap-
S
178 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
italism? Have you become a Socialist in becoming
a Bolshevik?
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
I suppose you are asking whether a Bolshevik is
a Socialist. I think that there is many a Bolshevik
to-day who was not a Socialist before the war. This
would be especially true of western countries like
England and America where formerly Socialism had
no standing
FRANK PLAISTEAD
That's true. With us in America the Socialists
as a party used to be a joke; a political club for
unassimilated foreigners !
1
JUDGE SEMYONOV
But now your Socialists are not so easily ignored,
Frank; so an American officer told me in London: in
some places where the “foreign element” is large,
the Republicans and Democrats have had to combine
as “Patriots " against them.
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
Patriots! Rightly named patriots, Judge! You
must admit, Teacher, your red friends are not
patriots.
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
I admit they won't let their minds be coerced by
certain so-called “national interests."
179
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
I understand you perfectly. The Bolshevik is a
genuine internationalist.
ALEXIS
A genuine internationalist! Yes! He doesn't go
round to international congresses in peace times and
then when war springs up, eagerly join the fray
against his former fellow-congressmen.
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
But I thought the Socialist was always an inter-
nationalist!
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
That's where you're wrong. That only shows how
much better it is to think of the Bolshevik apart from
the Socialist; otherwise you become confused. To
the Bolshevik this war has brought a clarification
of the social problem. He is so thoroughly dis-
illusioned that he is tired and sick of all talk of
patronizing and educating the laborers up to inde-
pendence; he wants to see them strike for independ-
ence at once.
YONOV
Your term “ Bolshevik". is used too broadly,
Teacher. You would call a Bolshevik, for example,
anybody who has come to see that this war is really
an economic struggle, and not what they say in the
books and speeches. I don't see why I'm not a Bol-
shevik within your definition.
180 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
You're not a Bolshevik! You've done some
straight thinking during the war, but you won't act
upon this as does a Bolshevik.
JUDGE SEMYONOV
Well, I'm a Socialist! I believe in social changes.
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
It doesn't take courage to believe that much. So-
cial changes are really unavoidable, aren't they?
ALEXIS
I think the Judge is much under English influences.
That he has been so long in England counts for some-
thing, doesn't it?
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
Oh, Judge Piotr is carried away by the constitu-
tional bias of the English Laborites.
JUDGE SEMYONOV
I certainly have my predilections. I like English
advanced labor thought because it is so sane. It is
broadminded, too, much broader than your Gompers
unions, Frank. The statesmanlike program of
“The English Labor Party” may, by its very moder-
ation, enable England to lead us all in making these
stupendous social adjustments that will as surely,
follow after the war in all countries as day follows
night. The “Independent Labor Party,” which is
a component part of the English Labor Party, is
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181
.
frankly Socialist, and some of its members are so
extreme as to speak kindly of the Russian Bolsheviks.
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
All these moderate Laborites or Socialists entice
some of the upper class to move to the left, and win
them as adherents without making too great a strain
on their pride. For after all is said and done, it is
not a very pleasant thing, suddenly, to work, cheek
by jowl, with men in a lower class. It is like break-
ing caste; your old friends boycott you.
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
There is a measure of truth in your observations,
Chastleevy. It is painful at first for a social
or intellectual blue-blood to become a Bolshevik.
He is self-conscious and uneasy in his heterodoxy, till
he comes to recognize his own brethren-in-idea both
above and below.
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
But why should these finest of the upper-class
minds cease to officer the state? I want the state in
the hands of the best men. I am an aristocrat, you
see!
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
And so am I!
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
I have doubts that these from the upper class who
unite with the proletariat in this crisis of the war, or
immediately afterward, can continue to work with
182 SKETCHES K
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
the labor people in all their social radicalisms.
Moreover, if the educated clements leave their moor-
ings to enter Bolshevism, shouldn't we expect the
uneducated elements also to undergo a “change,"
and meet us half-way!
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
Certainly the lower class must forego any
prejudices it harbors against members of the old
upper-class; more than that, it must work side by
side with them, taking their advice. In order to
obtain firm organization and control, and to increase
productivity, the proletarian state needs the co-
operation of the trained members of the bourgeoisie.
From them we learn.
ALEXIS
But I hear it argued by the Left-Communists that
if members of the bourgeoisie fill the managerial posi-
tions, control will pass from the hands of the pro-
letariat.
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
I'm not afraid of that! We shall not put the cart
before the horse: the driving power remains with the
workmen.
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
But these new worker-rulers must work. We will
not divide profits with a gang of loafers.
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
Certainly, certainly! You tell us your artist is
one who loves to work well. Now, if the laboring-
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183
man works well, why isn't he fully the man your so-
called artist is? As for the superiority of brain-
labor over hand-labor, hasn't a little too much been
made of that? The cabinet-maker may use his brain
more than the artist.
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
He may! He does, often! The work of some so-
called artists is mostly hand-labor.
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
And there may be more skill enlisted in the running
of a motor-boat or the firing of an engine than in the
teaching of algebra. Furthermore, the quality of
the laborer's thought is the quality of the man; often,
original, fearless, and honest; especially must it be
recognized that the laborer has been forced to think
faster and more independently since the war. In the
factory or in the trenches, he has learned something
of the truth not found in the modern sociology and
economics; he will refuse to be the same pawn he was.
ALEXIS
Few share such an opinion, Teacher! It is the
common mistake to suppose that the workman does
not think. Perhaps he is ignorant; nevertheless, this
very ignorance saves him from some of the mal-
cducation of stock-schooling. There you see Smer-
noff, the boot-mender, passing and talking in a free
and easy manner with a soldier tavarish; probably
explaining the day's news as it has entered into his
mind. Well! I have talked often with Smernoff,
184
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
and always with profit: his arguments are unpleas-
antly blunt at times, but as often as not I have to
admit that he is right — at least for him, if you
understand me.
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
Smernoff is a good boot-maker, too! As a rule
the best worker is the best citizen. Any Bolshevism
I approve, must provide for each citizen some work
so hard and difficult as to make him happy. My
work occupies me completely; Tolstoy's motion that
every artist must raise his own potatoes is not, to my
way of thinking, sensible; when I am confronted
with a task, I must work at it steadily for days -
and for nights; help comes to me off the edge of
dreams! If the Bolsheviks show they are, in any
such sense, a workers' party, not shirkcrs: if they
respect the happiness derived from work — I wish
them success!
TY
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
This is one of your serious nights, Chastleevy! I
hate to hear your talk of work. It is silly.
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
When I was young, I thought work silly, too; I
was a great seeker after happiness. At first, I took
it to be what people said it was. It was to have
this or that fine thing, to experience the pleasures
of the flesh, to be free — to be as much possible,
free to do anything that might come into one's head
or one's friend's head, to go and do. And so I went
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185
on many parties and I drank wine freely. I looked
with the others on the women that it was thought
were beautiful and gay. My father was rich, but
that I might be richer, he decided that I must estab-
lish myself in business, and I was willing to do that.
But all this time I was interested in art.
I amused myself at odd times with sketching and I
was very fond of visiting the studios of several
artists whom I knew. One day I was admiring a
new portrait just being finished by Glubovsky, a
portrait of his father; the portrait said so much to
me of Glubovsky, father and son, and of other indi-
viduals, that I found myself saying to my friend, the
painter, I do not know why, “ I should like to paint
a portrait.” “Of whom should you like to paint a
portrait?\" asked he. “Of myself,” responded I,
fecling as he did that it was a very curious thing I
had said. But I painted the portrait of myself. It
was very poor. So much pleasure did I find in that
labor, however,— pleasure that I had not before
known existed in the world, that since that time I
have never sought else but to paint; I have never
since sought pleasure in parties and in being free.
Perhaps you will say I should not call this painting
of mine, work, for I take such pleasure in it; but I
do call it work: it absorbs me, it tires me tremend-
ously, it is a means of getting the best out of me for
society: through it, society spends me and keeps me
a contented member.
And I should like to see that every one is also spent
and happy through work. That is why I think I
A3
186 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
might become a Socialist: in a Socialist State it
seems to me that every person would be most free to
devote himself to the pursuits of his choice. No boy
would fail to be an artist because he is poor. If by
“social equality,” Teacher, you mean opportunity
to every one to spend the riches within him, then
indeed I am with you for social equality. It doesn't
matter so much to me what you will do with the
money and the lands.
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
Doesn't matter much, eh! Chastleevy, you're just
another damned communist!
FRANK PLAISTEAD
After taking a turn or two about in Europe, I
don't wonder people in these old countries talk as
some of you Russians do. We have in America just
those opportunities of which you speak, Solkov.
And young people have been coming to us from the
oppressed countries for a century to find oportunity.
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
To find money! Money, I take it, lies in the way
at your feet there, to be kicked about!
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
Yes, I have often wondered, too, if it were not the
opportunity to make money that the Americans
treasure? Do they really believe that it is by their
money they are free?
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187
I
FRANK PLAISTEAD
But I tell you ---- will you listen? -- don't insinuate
that lie about us that it's all a question of dollars.
What's all this rot the Socialist gets off, if it isn't
mostly about money! They are the “have-nots."
Now I tell you, in America, we want everybody to be
a “have”; and we are moving along pretty well that
way. Chastleevy, we try to give everybody a good
job! Talk with any Americans! You will find we
are content with our country. What does the gov-
ernment do to hurt any one of us?
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
Hurrah, Plaistead! One fellow who isn't a kill-
joy!
FRANK PLAISTEAD
Put it there, old man!
(Shakes his hand.)
ALEXIS
And do you Americans fight to make all of us in
Europe content with ourselves as you are? You say
you fight to make the world “safe for democracy”;
what is this “ democracy” you would have safe-
guarded? One American says it is providing good
jobs; another, free schools; still another, assurance
to the aristocrats that they may choose rulers that
can rule! And so it goes!
FRANK PLAISTEAD
It's all that! Come and see what our democracy
is! We are always glad to demonstrate it. You'll
188 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
know then that it's worth extending over the wide
world.
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
All this protestation sounds very fine. Only it is
so easy. Do you know that our Czars have made
us speeches about peoples' rights, and that some of
them were sincerely meant, too! And in your freer
countries politicians, like evangelists, are very use-
ful to provide the public with appearances. You
really can't blame us in old Europe for having our
own opinions as to why America went to war. How
did we know that it wasn't just because you had
written certain notes to Germany and got out of
patience with her at last!
U
JUDGE SEMYONOV
That is too absurd, Michail Sergeivitch! It was
more than that.
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
Yes, I suppose so. There must be something more
than hot blood back of the war.
FRANK PLAISTEAD
It's my opinion that bad blood is best let out.
What do you think is back of the war, Professor?
Hand us the anti-war dope of your non-patriots.
You'll recognize its just weight when you see it fac-
ing you cold.
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
The cause of the war is not to be found in the
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189
Red, the White, the Green, and the Aquamarine
Government Books — that much is certain. These
nationalists, each accusing the other, speak out not
even an image of the truth! One set of warring
powers may have a different system of registering or
suppressing the popular will than another, but it was
not over this, exactly, we all began fighting each
other. The so-called democratic nations with whom
Russia was in league certainly did not press it upon
us at any rate, that we were fighting for any such
purpose. I don't think we can escape it — the war
had certain diplomatic origins. Each national
group of leaders is struggling to maintain as much
power for itself as possible. These leaders, repre-
sented by the diplomats, are the money class and a
blinded intelligentsia ; and as the war has progressed,
there has emerged, more and more, class feeling:
there has actually been a class-war arising out of
the national wars and staring these determined lead-
ers in the face.
FRANK PLAISTEAD
Our leaders are not the money-class!
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
Americans do not admit that their money-class has
power; it may have less than the money-classes
among some of their Allies; the American money-
class found it difficult to rally the whole people to
the war, especially the people of its Western States
-- so Alexis learned in Germany. Wilson provided
the high ideals sufficient to tease the people into war,
190 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
and he was ably seconded by a majority of the In-
telligentsia, which jumped to the war madness just
as the Intelligentsia of England, Germany, and
France had done. According to reports, the war-
hatred enjoyed by the American ministers, pro-
fesors, editors, and politicians was as virulent a
specimen of the species as you would find in the older
race-proud and race-hating nations of Europe.
There were a few voices raised against the un-Amer-
icanism of the war, but these were soon hushed by
prompt and cruel punishment, social or really penal.
FRANK PLAISTEAD
Professor, how do you know of conditions in
America ? Surely you don't trust information
Alexis picked up in Germany!
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
No, I don't. Any more than I should trust Amer-
ican information about the Germans in war time.
The information I rely upon about America comes
from talks with various Americans. To be sure, one
was an I. W. W. and two were Socialists, but the
others had all the marks of American aristocracy.
One, indeed, supports the war on the narrow ground
that after all the world was in for a cleansing by
war, and America, being in it now, will be a weight
toward the right solution it brings, which all radicals
are going to welcome.
JUDGE SEMYONOV
That American's is my own feeling as to America's
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191
1
object. She will exert the right influence; through
Mr. Wilson's fourteen points, for example. Cer-
tainly we Russians will find America our best friend
at the peace conference; we should be glad she is in
the war.
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
Her aims do go a certain distance.
. JUDGE SEMYONOV
Why not take America's aims as the best, and
cease cavil!
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
Perhaps they are the best Democracy, can offer.
We welcome them for what they are.
ALEXIS
And Wilsonian “ Victory! ”
. FRANK PLAISTEAD
I confess I don't see the value of long words and
philosophy when a nation fights for its honor. We
fight because we had to. If when you are returning
home to-night, a man accosts you with a raised fist,
you will not stop to inquire whether he is intoxicated
or in need of bread; you will strike first and strike
hard. Plain, isn't it! So why all this chatter about
the money-class in America. We haven't any
money-class; that is, I mean to say, our money-class
has no political power; in fact, it is so powerless, that
when it becomes known that the rich men want any-
thing done, the people get on their uppers and vote
192 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
the thing down, no matter what the merits. Look
at the great hold Bryan has had upon the common
people for years, simply because he posed as a
people's leader. And as for an intelligentsia, Amer-
icans would laugh at you to hear mention of such a
thing. I have heard you, Professor, carry on what
a mess of things your Russian intelligentsia has made
by dabbling in politics; you say they have failed
utterly to understand the masses,
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
Utterly! They are like an insoluble chemical
floating on top of a liquid. The two bodies have
different properties !
FRANK PLAISTEAD
Well, you can believe me, we in the good old U. S.
don't intrust our important business to intellectuals.
The men who are running the war for us in commit-
tees down in Washington are not intellectuals. Our
Government is run on business principles. Our peo-
ple prefer a good sewer-system to an oratorical con-
test. You Russians stand at the street-corners and
harangue for hours; we elect representatives to do
our talking for us.
JUDGE SEMYONOV
Yes, the representatives do the talking and the
political bosses build the sewers, receiving commis-
sions from the contractors, their personal acquaint-
ances.
(All laugh; even PLAISTEAD himself. He
LUOTI
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193
has BURTSEV, the waiter, bring cigars which
he offers around the table. Each man ac-
cepts one except ALEXIS PETROVICH. The
lad is immersed in his own thought, his chin
resting on one hand, the other hand now and
then getting into his hair and rumpling it.)
JUDGE SEMYONOV
I don't see why you need to despise your American
intellectuals, Frank. The English do better by their
men of thought. It is said that the men of Oxford
and Cambridge rule Britannia ; that the Oxford
Union trains for Parliament. But with you Amer-
icans, I believe there is no great appreciation for the
man of cultivated thinking and sentiment. I hesi-
tate to hold your educational system accountable
for the banality and bombast of your state and
congressional representatives. You boast of your
out men of free thought!
FRANK PLAISTEAD
Well, I don't think we should care for your Rus-
sian specimens of free-thought: loose nuts wrenching
themselves loose from their place, and clogging the
machinery! The educational system of a Democ-
racy should turn out men with common warm social
feelings, men united in heart and mind for the
rational progress of the public.
ALEXIS
A machine that turns out one hundred million
194 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
copies of one pattern, all thrilling with a sense of
duty to the rational progress of the public! It is
your university man, I understand, Mr. America,
that is often most banal of all. His school loyalties
are ubiquitous and childish; they consist of the fond
memories of his club and his football teams; his par-
ticular college is for definite reasons superior to all
others. The classmate. who is not interested in all
this boyish controversy and self-congratulation is
looked upon with suspicion. Even at the best
schools, the man of cultivated thinking and sentiment
is appreciated much as is the man who makes the
prayer at a dedicatory service; he is occasional,
there is found a use for him only rarely.
Taking it as a whole, our modern school system
everywhere reflects pretty well our economic system.
With the hardness and immorality of business go the
hypocrisy and shallowness of school; both love rule
and precedent; business has its own reasons for
being conservative, and school has its own reasons
for respecting the dictates of business. At school
one learns a thousand proprieties and exactitudes to
observe; the excellence of the national régimes past,
present and future; the divine right of the wealthy
to own! Once this scale of values is committed to
heart the graduate is generous in giving advice to the
unlearned: he knows just what to think and to do,
because it all happened so once before.
Worst of all is the pride bred at school: the belief
that all this foolish teaching is the sum of all that
one can know, and that if one does not persevere and
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195
receive a diploma, he will never be an associate of
those holding superior rank. Such pride is a mock-
ery of the humility of the truly intelligent man, who
holds no one in disesteem for ignorance, alone —-
ignorance which is accidental! Indeed, the ignor-
ance of the street and of the work-bench has certain
biologic-political value. Certainly I regret any
over-individualism in my own education which would
prevent my making quick contacts with those not
trained my way.
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
Don't worry about your education, Alexis.
You're a boy yet. One can see you have had no
experience with the world. It's time now for you
to break from the leading strings of Michail Sergei-
vitch. From him you have learned the Greek, and
doubtless well. From him, you have taken these
theories you have just expressed about schools — and
many other theories. But now you must know the
world. Have some fun, the fun of doing things!
You will learn the real secrets of living, so. Veritas
in vino! Books and schoolmasters — with all apolo-
gies (bowing to the Professor) — are a weariness
to the flesh.
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
Veritas in vino! Pasha, I acknowledge for
Alexis and myself the jibe you toss at us. True!
education over wine-cups is not the worst; especially
if that means the intellectual advantages of sympos-
196
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
ium; the digestion of the criticism of outspoken com-
rades.
JUDGE SEMYONOV
We want nothing short of the best education,
Teacher. And do you not agree that if we provide
this, the good state will come in its own good time?
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
I do not agree! Rather, I say the new education
can come only with the good state. The one must
come along contemporaneously with the other.
That is the way I put it. We already have the
“best education,” bundles of it! But the new realist
will have no use for this present notion of acquisitive
education: a teaching to possess knowledge like the
Chinese, to store it in the brain for exotic emerg-
encies; to classify and to catalogue, arbitrarily. He
desires self-education: education from within, not
from without; education without terms and holidays,
without dictatorial designations, without prejudice
against training the hand and the eye, in favor of
long training in language rooms. The social invid-
iousness, embedded at present in the schools, is an
inevitable reflection of the society in which they exist
-- this society wants the “ best education," just as
you do, Judge Semyonov. The new education --
pure, direct, and natural — cannot exist except
under a new social order. It will come when it is
wanted, when it is deserved. The Bolshevik does not
want bourgeois education.
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197
JUDGE SEMYONOV
The Bolshevik does not want culture taught in
the schools. He refuses to employ the old bourgeois
teachers.
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
The Bolshevik does not venerate traditional cur-
ricula. The concern of self-education is to provide
youth with stimulating contacts. Youth takes
unto itself all too quickly what it finds within reach.
No one is proper to teach in the new school who has
knowledge all laid-out and ready-made to fit, like
splints, the grooves of growing minds. The citizens
of the Bolshevik state must be trained to think; a
fortiori, the teacher must think; a man will not
lightly become a teacher to young realists! And
since the stuff of teaching is imitable human beings
- the teacher teaching himself --- the state must
select teachers with the greatest care. Certain old
bourgeois teachers do not meet this requirement.
However, they might still be employed, if only out
of pity, provided they did not seek the overthrow
of the very foundation of the new school, the new
state.
ALEXIS
Yet it seems incredible that that class in the state
which is the best trained — yes, even those men of
the diploma school I railed at — must not be the
ones to depend upon in such a time of the nation's
stress as at present. May not the remedy for the
shortcomings of this class be some such revolution
in the methods of teaching young aristocrats as you
198 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
have intimated, teacher? The question back of my
seeming conservatism on this point is: how, if the old
aristocracy failed to make use of its advantages of
superior training, can we expect the Proletariat to
profit more by its “social equality" training? I
suppose the answer to this question is involved in the
very issue we debate; shall there be social equality or
shall there not be?
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
That is the issue! In the new social order men
and women will not be counted in the class of “ aris-
tocrats ” according to their inheritance, but accord-
ing to their merits.
. FRANK PLAISTEAD
Professor, did I not hear you call yourself an
aristocrat, a while ago? And you speak now of a
“ class of aristocrats !” I supposed the Bolsheviks
would not allow classes of any kind.
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
We are becoming confused. Words are impeding
the progress of our argument. I see it is now
necessary to give the definition of Bolshevism, full-
blown, and then to trace out its philosophy, subse-
quently, step by step. Bolshevism — if you must
have it shorn of aļl the consolations of its political
philosophy - is the instant breaking up of the
present class system and the establishment in its place
of a dictatorship of the Proletariat.
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199
VOICE FROM THE CROWD
Why should one class rule all the rest of us, Pro-
fessor? I am studying to be a Felsher Doctor,
and —
ANOTHER VOICE
The Felsher Doctors are forming a union!
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
This protest of one-class rule is but another at-
tempt to evade the main issue. The Proletariat, by
the implications of Bolshevik philosophy, is not one
class; it is the body of all who exert themselves for,
or contribute to, the commonwealth any value, mate-
rial or spiritual.
VOICE FROM THE CROWD
Long live the Proletariat!
JUDGE SEMYONOV
The implications of Bolshevik philosophy! Phil-
osophy? Fool-osophy! Your Bolshevik thinks
only of one man — himself! He thinks only of the
moment. For long views, for ideals you must go to
the intelligent classes. Bad, selfish people you will
find among them; nevertheless, will you not admit,
Teacher, that as a class they are capable of acting
for the good of “ the whole”; that when they do act
against that interest they are generally unconscious
of wrong and act from good motives?
1 The Felsher Doctors in Russia are men nurses.
200
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
Tren
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
One's motives are generally good: nature sees to
that!
JUDGE SEMYONOV
Then isn't the simple remedy for the present ills
of our states, to let in light; show our upper classes
the larger goods they have not hitherto compre-
hended; convince them that the difference between
them and their unwashed brethren is not so great as
they have thought? Get the truth spoken — your
truth of history, of government?
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
No! The remedy is not so simple. The class
holding the political power to-day cannot see things
except through diplomatic lenses. The younger men
in this class would only in part receive the truth;
many of this part who did receive the truth would,
like our own Russian intelligentsia, refuse to trust
the lower classes with the truth: rather, they would
hold it to themselves till the lower classes should all
have become upper classes — this moderate policy is
the reverse of Bolshevism and it seems to me to be
an impossible one, as many of them must know: there
are not at present goods enough in the world to make
all the low like the high. If we trust to the enlight-
enment of these present rulers, the world will con-
tinue on with the present injustices. The upper
class has proved that it will not act with class-
unselfishness. Therefore we must give up the illu-
sions regarding it which we again and again have
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201
built up; we must remove every vestige of these old
class divisions, destroy them root and branch: the
upper class, economically, must become lower class
and share material power with all men and women.
VOICE FROM THE Crowd
We've had enough of our money-lords! I say,
sweep the house clean! Let us not leave past dirt
to remind the new tenant what a pig-sty his house
has been.
ANOTHER VOICE
Kill the stuffed-pigs! We'll give man for man.
If it is to be a war of extermination, it's easy win-
ning for us!
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
Your Bolshevik friends, Teacher, are tracing out
the implications of Bolshevik philosophy; isn't that
so?
JUDGE SEMYONOV
Michail Sergeivitch, are you so sure that the upper
class is not willing to share power with the people,
anticipating far in advance their real capability of
self-government?
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
If I were not sure twelve months ago, events since
have made me terribly sure!
ALEXIS
What events, Teacher?
202 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
here in European Russia! In Ukraine, the upper
class, though badly beaten and relegated by the Red
Guard, was determined not to let the power reside in
its own people: it refused to coöperate with them
and put at their service its own trained abilities. It
preferred to coquet, first with French, and then
with German class-help. As for Grcat Russia's
bourgeoisie, I say only one word, Miliukov: for his
kaleidoscopic performances he should be given mot-
lcy to wear! In Finland, the White Guards tri-
umphed with the aid of a German army. In revenge
for the presumption of the Reds — by all accounts
clearly the majority — the White Guards set out to
suppress them by wholesale imprisonment, execution,
exile, and the harshest measures of martial law: no
meetings of workmen; not a Socialist organization
allowed to raise its head - though before the war,
the Socialist Party was the largest party in the
country. The White Guards of Finland did all these
things, they said, in defense of law and order!
MAN FROM THE CROWD
What is a White Guard without a Hun or an
Englishman behind him! He loves foreigners more
than his own brothers.
JUDGE SEMYONOV
Ivan Leonivitch, don't exhibit your foolishness in
public; go home and get my bath ready!
WHOLE CLOTH
203
(IVAN LEONIVITCH, servant to JUDGE
SEMYONOV, leaves the crowd.)
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
And here is something to bear in mind, though it
be unpleasant. Finland, though small, though this,
though that, is not a peculiar people: its Red Guards
are like lower class everywhere; its White Guards are
like upper class everywhere. Particularly like the
situation in Finland during the revolutionary régime
is the Great Russia of to-day under the Bolshevik
régime; and this let me say unreservedly, as a warn-
ing or a hope, as you prefer: if the upper class in
Great Russia, especially, if with the aid, direct or
indirect, of foreigners, overcomes a government of its
own people, the lower class will mark that day and
remember it and its lesson.
SEVERAL VOICES IN THE CROWD
Hear! Hear!
FRANK PLAISTEAD
Isn't foreign intervention better than the terror
which exists in Russia to-day, which exists right here
in Nishni Novgorod? I may be arrested as I go
home to-night, and what boots it, if, after spending
the night in jail, some commissar informs me unc-
tuously to-morrow morning that it was all a mistake!
JUDGE SEMYONOV
The intervention of the Americans, at least, would
not have the reactionary character of the German
204 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
help to the Ukraine and to the Finnish White
Guards..
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
Why say intervention of the Americans, “at
least"? How least are these intervening, “non-
interventionist” Americans! Now, God knows, we
should be glad enough of any assistance in getting
rid of these Jewish despots of ours and in setting up
a government of real Russians, as glad as were our
brothers in the Ukraine and in Finland; but why
" the Americans, especially! If it is because they
would insure a “democratic " government, which is
their specialty, I believe, I, for one, at any rate, am
sure they would be “ least” the proper nation to help
us.
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
You confess yourself reactionary!
AN
S
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
Thanks, yes! What decent man in Russia is not
reactionary to-day!
JUDGE SEMYONOV
Don't take any stock, Frank, in what Pasha says
about democracy. He belongs to the “Russia
Party,” which has the patriotic slogan: “Russia for
the Russians.” By Russians they mean only blue-
blooded Russians. That is why they are the first to
cry that there are no “real Russians ” governing
the country to-day. His party is a back number.
We Social-Revolutionaries believe in a democracy
developing gradually into such socialism as the
: WHOLE CLOTH
205
initiatory steps prove to be practicable. Perhaps
not exactly the American brand of democracy - We
understand that you are governed by politicians,
Frank !
FRANK PLAISTEAD
We have the government we want!
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
So we in Russia have always had the government
we want. So have the Germans! They will have
the Hohenzollerns as long as they want them.
ALEXIS
By that kind of logic, slaves have the masters they
want! I don't believe the Germans want the Hohen-
zollerns any longer. If you had lived among, and
talked with, the Germans in the later war years, as
I have done, you would become convinced they are
going to develop a wonderful democracy. I tell you
the German people are thinking; they have learned
their lesson. Certain writers in the Allied countries
have expressed pity for the deceived German people;
well, the Germans, in the meantime, believe the people
in Allied countries similarly deceived. The German
people begins to admit it has been deceived, and it is
struggling for its own kind of “ democracy.” The
German “ Social Democrats," who are coming into
power soon, are “Democrats,” pretty narrowly
“ Democrats.” They have no use for Bolshevism,
and if it raises its head among them, they will be
willing to ally themselves even with the capitalists in
order to fight it.
206
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
(The people of the park are in commotion,
all heads turned upward. It is something to
do with the hydroplanes. The whirring of a
motor sounds quite near. The people in the
café go out into the park. One of the avia-
tors is practicing a new feat. From his
machine he lets loose a flock of pink slips,
which trail down on the wind like a shower of
sparks from a large piece of fireworks. A
slip which falls near the café is picked up by
a man in the uniform of an Austrian war
prisoner, standing near the men from the
corner table. He reads it to them: “Prole-
tarie vsekh stran, Soedeenaietis!”; Workmen
of all countries, unite! The Austrian ac-
cepts an invitation from CHASTLEEVY to join
the men at the corner table in a drink. The
waiter brings seven beers.)
BURTSEV, THE WAITER
(Addressing the Austrian.)
Tavarish, I wish we could drop some of them pink
notes over on the people of your country. Guess,
from the reports 'bout the strikes and so forth, your
workmen are most ready to join ourn.
CARL MARDINBURG
(Large, tall, and gladiatorial! "A frank blue eye.
He wears the uniform of a non-commissioned officer,
kept neat and clean. On his coat is a large iron
cross. His Russian, learned as a prisoner, is better
WHOLE CLOTH
207
than PLAISTEAD's.) I am not a Tavarish, Waiter!
The first Russian Red Guard that tries to fly over
our territory with such propaganda will discover
that we have excellent anti-aircraft guns!
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
Perhaps Herr Mardinburg is one of these “ Ger-
man Democrats!"
CARL MARDINBURG
I am an Austrian Social-Democrat! I am a
Socialist, a fighting Socialist; I have been a candidate
of my party for deputy to the Reichstag. We will
not recognize the Bolsheviks as good Socialists; they
have traded upon our hard-earned gains, and bring
our projects to bankruptcy. They block progress!
Paramente
BURTSEV, THE WAITER
What is “ progress," Gospadeen?
CARL MARDINBURG
" Progress ” is approaching the state of Karl
Marx. We Socialists expect to win our battle by
negotiation with the capitalistic classes. We have
been 'struggling with them since 1848 ; but at last we
have assurances of a genuine parliamentary govern-
ment; this much is won by our patience during the
war.
FRANK PLAISTEAD
(Has been undecided just how to take the presence
of the Austrian till his last words.) You’re darn
hootin', the war will fix you people up, all right!
208. SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
Just you see if you aren't rid of your autocracy!
That's what we Americans are in this war for.
CARL MARDINBURG
Thanks, we have not asked for your help. We
should much prefer anything we have got to what
you might give us. Some of you folks who are
anxious to set up freedom all over the globe had
better look first to home. You in America are the
most capitalistic-ridden of all! Wages, in propor-
tion to purchase-value of money, have fallen in the
United States during the period since 1905, seven
to eight per cent. Sixty-five per cent. of your peo-
ple receive an annual income less than $200 per cap-
ita, and have practically no property except their
clothes and furniture. Only sixteen per cent. of
your wage-earners are in unions. Our workers, on
the other hand, are nearly all organized. We con-
sider it important first of all to present a solid front
of laborers within the nation; after that it will be
becoming for us, perhaps, to rant about the solidar-
ity of the workers of the world as do our Russian
brothers.
BURTSEV, THE WAITER
Ah! you do reckon us brothers, then.
FRANK PLAISTEAD :
My German friend ----
CARL MARDINBURG
I am an Austrian, sir !
WHOLE CLOTH
209
FRANK PLAISTEAD
Certainly, Austrian! So much the better! My
Austrian brother, before you attack capital, why
don't you first interest yourself in Democracy.
Democracy must precede Socialism. Therefore, in
helping to establish democracy you further your own
cause. Why don't you workingmen of Austria help
the Czechs and the South-Slavs in their struggle for
liberty?
-
CARL MARDINBURG
We have struggled for the liberties of our brother-
workmen in the different parts of the Empire long
before you Allied Democrats became interested in
their lot. But we don't wish them to be separated
politically for the same reasons that you do: separa-
tion would weaken Socialists of all parts of our coun-
try in their economic struggle with the Entente Im-
pcrialisms. If we are beaten in this war, our work-
ing classes will have put upon them huge indemnities,
and our organizations, the best and most soundly
socialistic in the world, will be ruined. So it is that
we Social Democrats believe that we fight not only
for defense of country, but for defense of socialism,
as well.
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
It seems to me that by your attitude you Social
Democrats are helping to ruin both country and
socialism! You are the instruments of your ruling
class, which, loving country as little as they love you,
yet persuade you that you must fight for what they
210 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
call the country's defense. Be not deceived; it is
their own defense, and the defense of their “system”
against the ruling class and its system, in the enemy
countries, you fight! Your capitalists have deceived
you for long by keeping you workmen in different
parts of the Austrian Empire at logger-heads with
each other; and now they have you fighting against
the workmen of other nations.
CARL MARDINBURG
But we have nothing against the workmen in the
allied countries; it is only against the imperialists.
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
Your enemy workmen say exactly the same thing;
with a substitution of the word “ autocrat” for the
word “imperialist.” Moreover, since it is true, as
you say, that your workmen in the Central Powers
are the better organized, it was on you that we
expected the new light first to fall. I say I am dis-
appointed in you. You haven't had faith in your
brother-workmen of the world!
CARL MARDINBURG
Our brother-workmen weren't sufficiently organ-
ized. We have had to fight for them as well as for
ourselves. We are realists. I suppose it is on your
Russian workman the light has fallen!
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
Our Russian workmen have the better realism.
They believed in you and stopped fighting you.
WHOLE CLOTH
211
That was a piece of the new realism. The Russian
brothers did their part. Why didn't you do yours?
You did repudiate the Brest-Litovsk treaty, but at
the same time you have continued to support with a
vote of war credits, the government that is crushing
us with an iron heel; you continue to bargain blindly
with the oligarchy that is shamefully misrepresenting
you and filling nearly every one of your homes with
mourning for needless bloodshed; all for sake of
your will-o'-wisp principle of negotiation; your
party leaders seek narrow party ends; the big oppor-
tunity to lead the workmen of the world, they fail to
see. Many in your class and out of it, in Germany
and in the enemy countries as well, are ready to
work with German and Austrian Socialist leaders
and help obtain for them all they seek and more —
if only the light would fall upon them; if only they
would act as independently as they have spoken!
But lack of faith paralyzes them. The big oppor-
tunity will be seized by the leaders of a new body, the
German and Austrian Bolsheviks; then we shall see
which is the better realism!
ALEXIS
If some of the sturdy people I know join the Ger-
man and Austrian Bolsheviks, there is going to be a
revolution much better executed than ours !
JUDGE SEMYONOV
But none of your thinking Germans, Alexis, are
going to become Bolsheviks. Indeed, they may share
212 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
their privileges otherwise. I think better of our
class than you and Michail Sergeivitch do.
ALEXIS
That is because you do not ask so much of it.
You are content that it should always be looking
after itself alone! The rallying of a few of our class
to Bolshevism would improve the quality of its leader-
ship and change the character of the movement so
that some of us might unreservedly coöperate in it.
It will be for us to show the Bolsheviks that not all
rich men are money-ridden, and that not all uni-
versity-men are brain-warped; that, to the contrary,
men of the upper classes may be of like passions with
themselves.
JUDGE SEMYONOV
“Of like passions”! It is for this reason of like
passions, of one class as of another, that I prefer the
intelligentsia to rule: they have no more weaknesses
than another class, and they do know something. If
the mass has exclusively the power, it will be as selfish
and as narrow as the Capitalists.
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
It will be, unless there is a new counteracting social
morality at work in Bolshevism! Bolshevism is
ruthless. It can hardly succeed without frightful
and shameful wreckage, poor starts, and shoddy
work. The naked political truths with which it
deals, are two-edged swords that will slay the careless
wielder. In righting economic injustices a tempta-
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213
tion is placed before the opportunist Bolshevik.
Already the Proletariat leaders are too much
obsessed with ideas of the simple transference of
to authority, they must be warned against the subtle
abuse of power and the insidious corruption of riches.
And woe to them if they betray a double trust!
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
I don't think the workers will double-cross their
fellows. It would be breaking the first rule of the
game. The difficulty will be to teach the new game.
It will be natural for many of the Proletariat to play
according to the rules of the rotten old game, which
was the trading of favors all of a money character.
You see we are all saturated with this money spirit.
I've nothing against rich men. If only they would
use their money as trustees! The damage to the
commonwealth is not so much that some men have
the money as that the money has them.
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
The money gets into the hands of the cleverest
men - and is spent by them for the good of all!
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
It is all very well to talk about trusteeship! That
is laissez-faire! We have tried that. The present
social stratification of society is the result. Some-
thing contradictory to the crudest notions of justice !
We must try something else! As with biological
changes, so with social changes, it is a case of
214 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
“must.” Those blessed by the amazing inequalities
of the old system “must” give way! The war has
hastened that “must." many years, by throwing the
truth on a living screen of dying and blasted men.
Our generation is so benumbed by commercialism
that we are unable to measure just how much com-
mercialism threw us into the war and just how much
the war has pulled us up out of commercialism. But
one thing is evident, we have a guilty conscience
about our social inequality, and each party is falling
all over itself, proposing immediate reparation to
those not favored by capitalism — your conservative
talks social amelioration as loudly as the next man!
1
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
Teacher, do you hold the opinion with some that.
the war is a punishment for the commercialism of our
generation?
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
I ought not say “I am of this generation, my-
self! But that this war is a field on which the mov-
ing spirit of our present civilization has found its
apotheosis and best exemplification, I cannot doubt.
And I think we must admit that money-making plays
no insignificant part in the modern spirit. To build
bigger barns is the ideal. Success is measured by
material prosperity. The young man may have his
visions, perchance, while at college. A year out of
college, he sees only the glamour of what all men strive
for. He hardens and nerves himself till he too has
WHOLE CLOTH
215
acquired certain goods; then, in the degree to which
he has become “ successful,” he is at ease, cushioned
by material things. And having employed the
boundless energy of youth in acquiring this standard
of comfort, he has been delimiting his interests till
he comes to a point where he can no longer adjust
himself to the new; ignorant of the brave secrets of
Youth, he despises it; he becomes conservative at
thirty, say! Out of the men schooled with these
ambitions, few. can be recruited to take up the tasks
of the new political realism. Such men live within
their own so-called laissez-faire realism. Talk with
these men about it and you will discover all sorts of
odd fancies and inconsistencies, which crop up, one
by one — the more particularly if your conversation
is with a man old in the system, who has been unus-
ually successful. So, I say, and it is only just now,
war-taught, I say it: the present class divisions
“must " be erased. With surprising rapidity will
make their appearance new class divisions according
to the deep natural differences between men. The
present division into richer and poorer is false alto-
gether! God makes men this and that; He never
makes them rich and poor. He never fore-ordained
it that some should be blessed with power and oppor-
tunities by the very reason of being rich men.
JUDGE SEMYONOV
Surely you will not rail, as does this privileged
press of ours, at the Bourgeoisie! The Bourgeoisie
are the intelligent and useful people, the plain bul-
S
216 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
A country is just so strong as its
wark of society.
middle-class.
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
I hesitate to say it, Judge Piotr Vassilievitch; I
hesitate, because you will not understand me, but I
do say: “ Away with the Bourgeoisie!” I do share
with the Bolsheviks a hatred of everything Bour-
geois !
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
Teacher, there must be a great deal behind what
you say! I cannot yet comprehend how you can
think the thoughts of raw men. There must be a
great deal behind what you say!
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
There is my whole life behind it! ... I say this is
not the time for compromise. Middle-class-ism has
failed egregiously! Let this war be its last, as it is its
consummate, orgy! The Bourgeoisie exemplifies the
concentration of pride in riches. When confronted
with the necessity of a choice, it prefers Mammon.
Almost any pride is more sufferable than “purse-
pride”; pride of country, pride of strength, beauty,
or mind — all these express durable values. But to
sit self-satisfied with the possession of house and land
is of all abominations the most damnable! Why
pride in house? The owner did not plan or build it.
He drove a bargain with a good architect. Not a
slab, not a stroke of paint in the house stands to
the owner's credit. But when he takes another rich
WHOLE CLOTH
217
man through it and the guest enumerates its excel-
lent points, the owner expands with elation, and takes
to himself the glory of the good work. Deluded
fool! the echoes in the wide corridors mock him for his
emptiness! Or consider pride in dress! The lady
has taken a fashionable dressmaker to counsel; she
has procured materials of high cost; she is lavish in
order that the gown may reflect her station, or a
little anticipate her station. Her own personal
beauty and grace, if she happens to have them, are
mocked by her vanity.
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
Riches are not always a mockery to their possess-
ors. Rich persons may do for the public what it
could never afford to do for itself. They may make
of their possessions collections of the beautiful
objects in the world for all to enjoy.
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
But who appointed these persons to be public
benefactors? By what justice shall a Rockefeller
or a Rothschild give or withhold?
Judge SEMYONOV
How can you blame the rich for being what they
are! Why shouldn't they control their wealth till
the proper time, when, by graduated laws preventing
great suffcring to the innocent rich, excess wealth
can be distributed ?
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
We do not blame the rich for the whole system,
218 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
nor do we expect them individually to surrender
control of their share under it. But, on the other
hand, when we come collectively to abolish inequal-
ities, the rich must not expect to be shown favors.
They are not anæmic! I suppose you look upon
the laws forcing the Bourgeoisie to work as the re-
finement of cruelty. In Russia where our upper
class is exceptionally idle, I hold such laws especially
commendable. They impress upon the Bourgeoisie
the reality of the wiping out of class distinctions.
For the laws are not that the rich shall work; they
read that all shall work. There should be no“ rich"
to devise “fatigue-duty” for; to legislate for, to
graduate taxes for! Let there be one class, call it
what you will: the proletariat, the voters, the com-
munity! When there is only one class, the talk
about the harmony of the classes, and the sweet
dreams of the union of capital and labor, will be out
of fashion.
ALEXIS
You would have capitalism go smash!
FRANK PLAISTEAD
Abolish capital! Abolish the whole blame shoot-
ing-match of society! Impossible! Even your sav-
age owned his own tomahawk.
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
· But “ your savage” didn't own the hunting woods
nor the fishing grounds. It is the possession of
capital over and above individual need that I mean
WHOLE CLOTH
219
by “ capitalism”: the ownership of one man greater
than the ownership of another man in such a degree
that the greater owner can be termed a “rich man."
The abolition of capitalism does not mean the inter-
ruption of all property rights, nor does it put a tax
upon the different forms of saving. It does not
bring to an end the classes of merchants, bankers,
and lawyers; the merchant becomes a better merch-
ant; the lawyer a better lawyer; the property of each
is handled, however, subject to the new understanding
of social equality.
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
H. G. Wells says that we are not to tell the rich
young man to go and sell all that which he hath and
give to the poor. He must keep it, rather, as a
sacred trust. And if any rich man is not willing to
handle his riches as a trust, he must surrender it
without a day's delay.
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
I prefer Jesus to Wells, there! In most respects
we cannot improve upon the communism of Jesus.
Jesus said, “ It is easier for a camel to go through
the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the
Kingdom of God.” There is no reservation made
that rich men may enter the Kingdom as trustees.
The language of Jesus is strong. Such language is
not used in the churches to-day; the gospel has been
interpreted by a commercially-minded clergy for a
commercially-minded laity. Seeking to commend
Christianity to their pew-holders, the clergy have it
220 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
revealed to them that the whole sum of the teaching
of Jesus is symbolical. They promise their Sunday-
frock congregations that their personal consecration
to Jesus is a blanket insurance for their earthly
goods: it does not matter how one gets money; only
one must do good with it; in so doing he will be
rewarded by the prayers of those who receive his
charity, etc. The Bolshevik takes Jesus at his
word; he finds the religious message of Jesus all cant
without a literal interpretation of his social com-
mandments. Jesus would not compromise with the
rich man; neither will the Bolshevik! . Jesus made
his social teaching the beginning of the wisdom he
would show unto his followers. The Bolshevik
makes the creation of social equality the first statute
of the new realism!
The horror with which men look upon the intro-
duction of social equality is an index of the thinness
of their blood! The rich man who is sincere in main-
taining that he holds his wealth in trust should have
no fear of communism: for communism is but the
extension of the principle of trusteeship. Nor need
he fear he will not continue to be an aristocrat: he
can demonstrate that he is one in some path of the
spirit; and whatever abilities he possesses will shine
of their own luster and be recognized, at least in the
fraternity of the best men where he would be most
proud to have them recognized. In Plato's Republic
the leaders, the philosophers, were to live the most
simple life; luxuries were to be the portion only of
the artisans — they would corrupt the best men!
1
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221
Social equality is as essential to securing the richest
life to the best men as it is to securing the richest
life to those of few talents. The best man, busy-
minded, will irk the distraction of the sheer display
of badges of distinction. The full mind is not
covetous. That those both of quick and dull mind
should all have stomachs satisfied, what offense!
Why should not men eat and wash and dress, and
otherwise satisfy the demands of the body, upon
terms of equality?
VU
FRANK PLAISTEAD
You seem just now to be saying the obvious, Pro-
fessor! The upper class is willing that all should be
properly fed and clothed, but this still leaves a
goodly surplus. The war has shown, that by well
directed economies on the part of the people, cach
country can amass an unbelievably large sum for
national needs. After the war, as before, this excess
wealth, call it capital if you will, should go to men
according to their ability, natural or acquired, to
use it. Of course there will be injustices here and
there; that is inevitable under any system. But
prove to me that another system will work with less
injustices, all told, and I, for one, am willing to give
it a fair trial!
EXIS
How can we know that a system will work till we
have given it fair trial? The conditions upon
which you would welcome reform, Mr, Plaistead, it
222
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
1
seems to me, are the impossible or emasculating con-
ditions for which your conservative always stip-
ulates. For my part, I see that the old must give
way to the new; I am persuaded by the good sense of
social equality, as the Teacher defines it; and, further,
I believe that the world cataclysm has swept us a
long distance toward it. But I cannot see my way
to wish too violent changes; for example, the striking
down of capital in one generation. You are a great
believer in social evolution, Teacher. Now, do you
not think that social evolution, which has been phe-
nomenally rapid in this century, will bring the full
social equality which you describe, naturally and
without countless suffering, even sooner than one
would expect! The strain of political upheaval has
already cut thousands of individuals off from their
past and lost them their happiness. Should we pile
misery on misery by forcing extreme steps? Must
not people accustom themselves to the new order
the wearing demands of the new, to live out their
lives normally and joyously! This is where my chief
quarrel with Bolshevism lies ; I suppose it is a small
point and I am over-sensitive.
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
And this is my quarrel with Bolshevism, Teacher;
not a small point at all to my mind! The Bol-
sheviks look like barbarians to me. I fear they won't
allow the beautiful things to remain in their places ;
and that, worse still, they won't allow me to continue
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223
to create beauty after the patterns in my own heart.
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
The rottenness of the whole present state you all
admit: Mr. America, you would patch it; and you,
Alexis and Chastleevy, would temporize with it, give
it leeway to bring us again on the rocks! Plaistead,
the ship is beyond repair, I assure you; it is a rotten
hulk; it will fall to pieces of no force at all in one
good storm! And I assure you, Chastleevy, that the
destruction done by the Bolsheviks is of the ugly,
not of the beautiful! The beauty achieved at the
expense of unbrotherliness is unhealthy and false.
If you have the enduring interests of art in mind, son,
then accepting what must be, join in the Bolshevik
movement; be one to modify its character your way;
see the amazing beauties which by the quickening of
all forms of social activity it will call forth! As
for the amount of misery Bolshevism brings, I assure
you, Alexis, that however great, it cannot be com-
pared with the amount of happiness Bolshevism will
bring! Look out on the path now! There is an
illustration of what the Bolshevik 6 extreme steps ”
lead to. (MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH points to a young
man and a young woman slowly sauntering, arm in
arm, past the café.) There is Anna Rudina enjoy-
ing the evening with her lover, Nicolai Novamus-
chenko. That pretty dress she wears was just made
with her own hands: they say she is very proud of it,
and so is Nicolai, too; it is the result of lessons from
her former dressmaker; her father cannot afford to
224 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
have everything done for her any longer. Who says
she is not happier in spite of her loss of caste! Her
father had turned young Nicolai away from the
house when he discovered that Anna was beginning to
care for him. Poor boy, he was an exceptionally
bright lad, but he was only her tutor. Now the
social gulf fixed between the lovers has been bridged.
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
Now he is our distinguished commissar of educa-
tion.
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
Whatever you may say, Pasha, there are those
about town, even in the Rudin set, who freely declare
that Nicolai is a better man for her than her father's
choice, to wit, you, yourself, Pasha. Come now,
Pasha, shouldn't you have been glad to take the girl
before she lost - caste, eh!
JUDGE SEMYONOV
I can see in the misfortunes of the Rudins but one
of many instances of the economic waste and ruin of
Bolshevik rule. And it isn't for such as the Rudins
the misfortune is greatest; it involves as well the
Russian workmen and peasants. You believe me,
gentlemen, when I say I have the interest of the work-
men really at heart.
S
BURTSEV, THE WAITER
Yes, we believe you, Judge. We know that you
were a leader in the fine work of the Novgorod Zem-
stvo. And when there was much suffering from lack
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225
of work two winters ago, you organized a powder
shop to provide idle men with employment.
JUDGE SEMYONOV
Well, Rudin was the citizen who contributed the
most capital to the new powder shop, wasn't he?
Now Rudin is a splendid fellow for all such under-
takings. His judgment is unerring. It was he con-
vinced us it was a powder plant we wanted: he said
a powder plant would not entail exorbitant initial
cost, and its output could be adjusted nicely to the
amount of idle labor we found.
CARL MARDINBURG
You don't mean to argue that private capital is
the only means of solving the problem of unemploy-
ment. Certainly state registration of the unem-
ployed, as we have it in Austria, is a more thorough
remedy.
JUDGE SEMYONOV
I am not arguing any such point! I merely wish
to show what a waste of community wealth it is, to
put a man like Feodor Rudin on the shelf as the
Bolsheviks have done. There's his brewery now, idle,
earning a living for no man! Almost every one of
our factories has been crippled or absolutely ruined
by these tavarishes!
ALEXIS
Nonsense, Judge, not so bad as all that! Don't
blame the Bolsheviks for all of the disorganization;
226
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
it began under the old régime; no one reckons just
how far the old crowd brought the country to its
last legs! Rudin's brewery was already running
down by the time of Kerensky. Anyway, the Bol-
sheviks have closed all the breweries and distilleries
on principle; and I'm glad of it.
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
And I don't like the principle! Good wine never
harmed me.
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
This café here, one of Rudin's smaller undertak-
ings, is not suffering under Bolshevik management:
we would all agree that Burtsev does very well with
the place since his elevation from head-waiter to
proprietor. Make money, too, don't you, Burtsev?
BURTSEV, THE WAITER
(Being free for a time from the needs of customers,
has drawn a chair up to the table. He is an active
little animal of twenty-five. He limps from a wound
received in the war. His snappy black eyes show
anger or pleasure quickly.) Oh, I have no kick
coming! I have got married, and Marsha and
I, together, live better than I ever did, alone. If
I do say it, the café is as well managed as before.
But there's The Metropole, Rudin's large restau-
rant up-town, that the waiters are running poorly.
Vladimir, who was head-cook, doesn't know enough
to run a restaurant. He doesn't understand buying,
he charges too little, and he allows the place to go
I do sether, live , got m
WHOLE CLOTH
227
looking like a kitchen. He tries hard to make a
success of his new responsibilities, but he and his
wife are not so well off as before --- and they have
more children. Vladimir told me yesterday that he
intends going to Broderensk, Rudin's old manager,
for advice; I think it would be better if he gave over
to young Leonid Petrovich, the clerk. Petrovich
after a little would be able to run a good restaurant,
even one so fine as that The Metropole used to be.
JUDGE SEMYONOV
Man, aren't you sensible enough to see that society
cannot afford experiments made by these second-rate
leaders! Society is most prosperous when indi-
viduals are subordinated on an ascending scale.
Bolshevism turns things upside down, puts men of
inferior abilities on top. In any political realism
I recognize, men must take the places assigned them
by ability. I confess I don't understand the Teach-
er's new realism; it is Utopian fantasy, I think!
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
I understand realism not at all, either old or new!
JUDGE SEMYONOV
Though skeptical of futuristic realism, Teacher,
do not put me down as the friend of unregenerate
laissez-faire. As a Socialist, I believe in many modi-
fications of the natural competition in business. I
advocate wiping out the present injustice in the
distribution of wealth. The right to inherit I would
leave only to dependents ; unearned increment I would
228
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
prevent altogether. I advocate the utmost publicity
in the dealings of all nations, large businesses, and
organizations of a public nature. But, after all
are given a fair chance and a fair start, a field where
there is no underhanded dealing, no speculation
markets and fraudulent advertising, then I say let
individual competition reign, and reveal what return
individuality, and special aptitude and training,
will give!
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH :
These measures you Social-Revolutionaries pro-
pose differ from Bolshevism only in degree and in
the ardor and in the method with which they are to
be prosecuted. You would have publicity of a
defined sort: in the dealings of nations, large busi-
nesses, and semi-public organizations. The new
realism would have thrown on every department of
human life and relations without limitation the glow-
ing light of science: testing, weighing and comparing
human valuations with infinite patience and utter
lack of bias. For example, you say, Judge, you
would grant the right to inherit to dependents only.
The new social science would want to inquire further
about these “ dependents."
FRANK PLAISTEAD
Absurd! That a man may not leave behind to
his family what he has hard-earned. What incentive
to work would remain, pray?
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229
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
Don't worry, Mr. America; your prospective
father-in-law, Judge Semyonov, will arrange to have
you and Sara Petrovna counted as “ dependents.”
Anyway, Mamma Semyonov is not subject to any of
these new theories, she will not scruple to leave her
only child everything.
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
Your watchword, “Let individual competition
reign,” right enough, belongs to the old realism,
Judge, argue as you will it doesn't. To say that
competition is ordained by nature because found in
the present economic system as it has gained head-
way and taken its own course of development, is
unfair to nature: the only natural thing about this
system is its own cussed nature! It is unfair to
say, when by certain laws of dollar-dom one dollar
becomes two, that this is human nature. The new
realism tries by looking behind the facts to see what
human nature is.
ALEXIS
Yes, it is much easier to see statistics and trade
balances than to see human facts — to see, for exam-
ple, that the boy in the shop is contracting tuberculo-
sis owing to the needlessly unsanitary character of
his work. The defender of the old system says the
system is made to fit human nature; it seems to me
that, on the contrary, it is a case of human nature
being made to fit The System: The System takes
human nature as a raw product, and keeps it raw.
230 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
Your old-system man relies on the principles of
simple, unenlarged, animal biology, to prove any
thesis, be it in the realm of politics, of economics,
or of philosophy; with his theory of competition he
explains all progress in the past; without competition
in the future, he says, all will be waste and deteriora-
tion. He ignores what part coöperation plays
in the development of human habits; he ignores,
also, the fact that really intensive studies in the
psychology of collective feeling and thinking are yet
to be made. There comes to my mind one of Chast-
leevy's stories that shows well with what blind-
ness and misplaced emphasis people are likely to
work out survival laws. Tell us, Chastleevy, about
the Suhona peasant woman's kasha!
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
Teacher, I don't just see the bearing of that story!
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
Anyway, you tell it, Chastleevy, and I'll explain
the bearing!
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
Well! This is the story of an experience out in
the Suhona district one summer when I was visiting
my friend Dmitri Constantinovich Kral. Dmitri
and I were riding horseback over his estate, one
bright morning. The green river hills were cutting
the blue sky sharply, and white fleecy clouds were
sailing through the heaven as if just to add comfort
and completeness to the picturesque landscape. We
WHOLE CLOTH
231
came on the river road to a little cottage, surrounded
by out-buildings of thatch, which was a favorite
stopping-place with Dmitri. The peasant's children
gathered round us, and Dmitri Constantinovich,
patting them on the head, drew from his pocket a
box of sweets and gave it to a curly-headed daughter
whose madonna face still hangs in my mind. Then
arrived the busy housewife and invited us inside to
drink tea. We accepted the invitation as a mat-
ter of course, and I tasted the finest kasha I had
ever known. “Your kasha is excellent," I said to
the housewife; “ tell me, please, how you manage to
cook it so tastily!”
“ It is not the cooking, sir," she replied with a
smile, “it is the grain which is excellent.”
“ Tell my friend," interposed Dmitri Constan-
tinovich, “how it is you grow such excellent grain."
So she told me.
“For many years," she began," it was my man's
custom to pick the largest kernels as seed grain on
our own strips. He thought in this way he would
improve the quality of the crops from year to year.
And sure enough, every year the kernels were larger
and larger, and my man thought how clever he was:
his grain kernels were larger than any in the dis-
trict. But I was not so pleased. I did not like the
large kernels to eat. I found it more and more
difficult to make tasty kasha. So I said to my man
Gabriel : Gabriel, I do not like your large kernels !
I would rather have them small and tasty. Choose
this year for our seed grain from lots which make
232 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
the tastiest kasha.' Gabriel in matters of cooking
never disputed me; he heeded me, and planted the
seed which I had selected. And the next spring he
did likewise, and so on, till now our kasha is the
tastiest kasha that you will eat in the whole dis-
trict."
And now, good Teacher, I leave it to you to explain
the parable of the Suhona peasant woman and the
small and the large kernels !
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
The story illustrates the folly of supporting pleas-
ing points in view in politics by the theory of compe-
tition. It is begging the question. It is confusing
ends with means. To argue that the man who is
richest, who is biggest for the number of barns he
owns, is the best; to argue that the man won in a
fair competition, therefore he must have the brains,
he ought to succeed; that there is some justice in
his obtaining power over others,— may be syllogistic,
but it does not get us anywhere!
ALEXIS
What you say, Teacher, puts me in mind of cer-
tain views expressed in a book I have at the moment
in my pocket, a piece of the dead propaganda matter
which the agents of the different nationalisms have
struck off by the thousands of copies and distributed
broadcast in Russia, especially during the Kerensky
days — President Wilson's “The New Freedom.”
Let me read a few passages I have marked. (He
WHOLE CLOTH
233
draws from his pocket a pamphlet with closely printed
lines, and reads, interpolating explanations.)
“ All the fair competition you choose, but no unfair
competition of any kind. And then when unfair compe-
tition is eliminated, let us see these gentlemen [the trust
magnates] carry their tanks of water on their backs.
All that I ask and all that I shall fight for [Wilson re-
fers here to the campaign he was waging for the presi-
dency] is that they shall come into the field against merit
and brains everywhere. If they can beat other Ameri-
can brains, then they have got the best brains.-
“I know, and every man in his heart knows, that the
only way to enrich America is to make it possible for any
man who has the brains to get into the game. I am not
jealous of any business that has grown to that size
['grown'is his italics]. I am not jealous of any proc-
ess of growth, no matter how huge the result, provided
the result was indeed obtained by the processes of whole-
some growth, which are indeed the processes of efficiency,
of economy; of intelligence, of invention.-
“In New Jersey (the name of a state in which Wilson
either was at the time, or had been, governor, I take
it] ... the corporations involved opposed the legisla-
tion with all their might. They talked about ruin -
and I really believe they did think they would be some-
what injured. But they have not been. And I hear, I
cannot tell you how many, men in New Jersey say:
'Governor, we were opposed to you; we did not believe
in the things you wanted to do, but now that you have
done them, we take off our hats. That was the thing to
do, it did not hurt us a bit; it just put us on a normal
footing; it took away suspicion from our business.' New
Jersey, having taken the cold plunge, cries out to the
rest of the states, 'Come on in! The water's fine!' I
wonder whether these men who are controlling the United
States realize how they are creating every year a thick-
234 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
ening atmosphere of suspicion, in which presently they
will find that business cannot breathe?”
There you have the democratic view. Only bring
things out into the light! Publish income and tax
statistics! It is not the actual injustice that the
people mind; it is that they are not acquainted with
the fact of the existence of injustice. This is not
different in kind from the competition idealized by
the German historians and philosophers.
· MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
They preach realism of a very gross sort!
CARL MARDINBURG
How much grosser than the realism practiced by
the Entente diplomats, who have been deliberately
stilling the legitimate desires of the Germans for
colonies? The French militarists used the influence
of the English and Russian governments to frighten
Germany into acquiescence in the designs of French
capitalists on Morocco.
ALEXIS
You German and Austrian Socialists should have
known that the English are not all Milners, nor the
French all militarists!
CARL MARDINBURG
But all the French and English and Russians who
counted were capitalists; it was our capitalists that
they were attempting to defeat, to be sure: these
are all facts! But how else could you expect our
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235
Socialists to express their fact than first to help our
capitalism conquer the other capitalisms, and then
to conquer it!
FRANK PLAISTEAD
But you so-called German Democrats never saw
the fact of the United States. We offered you a
court of international justice where you might stand
and plead your case.
A
CARL MARDINBURG
We did see the “fact” of the United States, we
came to see it as a fact auxiliary to the English-
French fact. You Americans refused to keep court.
This was because you also had a System, which was
disturbed by the split in the European System.
Since the war with Spain, your capitalists have aimed
at the expansion of their democracy into something
- like imperialism!
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
Something like the Athenian hegemony of the
Americans! Cuba, Panama, Haiti, Nicaragua, and
Mexico are to form a Delian Confederacy for the
United States !
ALEXIS
The great crime all these Nationalists commit is
that they lay so much stress upon the superiority of
the man of their own race, language and culture, to
lead the procession!
236
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
It's more than that, Alexis! The Nationalist not
only says his countrymen are superior — but he also
makes this an excuse to grab for his country what-
ever may make it richer!
The Bolshevik realism allows for startling differ-
ences between the German and the American, between
the Englishman and the Russian; but, at the same
time, stresses the fact of unity, the common interests:
it allows for the development of separate cultures,
but it stresses the fact that great literature and
great art are universal; the great masterpieces are
translated into every language. The Bolshevik prin-
ciple of open diplomacy is an accounting of this sort
of fact; if one people knows what the honest claims
and needs of another people are, misunderstandings
will be cleared away, the real conflicts will emerge,
and the just claims and needs of each people will
be legitimatized in so far as the balance of interest
for the world brotherhood permits. It is clear that
if the Proletariat should come into power, all over
the world, war would become very unlikely: for the
workmen everywhere would have identical interests
and needs; and the sufferings and losses on both
sides in a war would be more apparently than now
workmen's sufferings and losses.
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
so seriously, Teacher, it's positively funny. One of
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237
the first needs of workmen — even they — is money,
capital, isn't it?
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
Certainly! Let there be capital available to all
the workmen on easy terms. What better means to
provide for this than the nationalization of banks,
a Bolshevik measure! The Bolshevik aims to have a
census of all the needs of the workmen, and then
to meet them as expeditiously and as equitably as
possible.
ALEXIS
And by “needs " you haven't in mind physical
needs, alone; bread and butter!
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
Of course not! All the desires and fancies of men
should be represented by an interest. Mind I do not
specify that they be “normal,” common,- democ-
racy's regimen; I consider individual caprice just so
much potential wealth; it has significance for our
new political realist.
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
Libertinism! Sanine! How far do you go?
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
So far as the individualist is not anti-social!
JUDGE SEMYONOV
There is no doubt the libertine would readily
enough accept your “new realism," as a good Bol-
238 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
shevik! You, Pasha, as a pleasure-lover, would ac-
cept it, if you already weren't in a position to enjoy
privileges under the old system!
STY
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
You may take me for a worthless fellow seeking
my pleasure, but I and my kind are few. To tempt
all the untrained rabble to fall into a like worth-
lessness, as Michail Sergeivitch proposes, that is a
serious matter. Restraining laws must be made by
the aristocrats; the people will never discipline them-
selves. Think of the abomination of the Bolshevik
divorce law. Why I understand that a man needn't
be bound by his marriage vows any longer than the
duration of the marriage ceremony, which is short
enough now at the magistrate's office, God knows!
You can't tolerate sex laxity in the people. It will
produce laxity in every other sphere of life. The
Bolshevik removes the restraint of the church, he
removes the restraint of the law, and now he removes
the restraint of conjugal and family duties. Your
ordinary man of the street, tasting such liberties,
will go to the devil in a short time!
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
Perhaps you really believe that a man restrains
his passions only when opposed by an iron law.
We do not observe you and your pals observing any
law in these matters: you enjoy pleasure by night,
and sleep by day; and drink and eat, always, even
now!
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239
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
We have no difficulty in getting our wine still.
It is a Bolshevik we bribe!
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
Now you make fun of proletarian prohibition.
You gentlemen will have your fling at every attempt
at organized unselfishness! You are convinced of
the depravity of us all. You are not, yourselves,
bound by custom, but you like to see others so bound;
indeed this subjection of theirs gives you with your
super-morality, a sense of secret superiority. Ac-
cordingly, you lay stress on sex rectitude: those who
depart from the code — to which you and your fel-
lows pay homage only in name — for howsoever a
relative good, receive the stinging blows of your
whips. You talk much of sex. You read the liter-
ature which exploits it. You are reticent at one
time that you may be prurient at another. And
so when Bolshevism comes, menacing your whole
sacro-cryptic attitude on sex matters, you rise up
in all the tattered and half-broken majesty of your
class self-righteousness against this arch-treason to
the old sanctities; you declare that you will con-
vict the Proletarian movement of sex-heterodoxy;
and you imagine that this is to give the movement
its “knock-out blow."
FRANK PLAISTEAD
But, my dear Professor, just to unmask prudery
and hypocrisy, you would not have us throw to the
winds all decencies, and the regularities which the
240 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
accumulated wisdom of the race has shown to be a
physiological necessity. The irregularities of the
rich may be reprehensible, but, certainly, you will
not carry your craze for social equality so far as
to plunge the big mass of common people into excess
and debauchery by permitting them the same free-
dom! Your radicals in all history run to Free
Love. Sensuality takes the place of religion with
them; they worship the Beast! And the Bolsheviks
show the weakness of true radicals in this respect as
in others.
ALEXIS
With what debauchery can you charge the Bol-
sheviks? You have witnessed ten months of the rule
of the Proletariat. Have you seen excesses, have
you seen drunkenness, have you heard of a reign of
debauchery?
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
Now don't try to paint your hooligan friends as
angels, Alexis. I was in Petrograd the first night of
the revolution. I heard how the soldiers burst into
the Winter Palace, stole the jewels and gold, and
how several were found the next morning floating,
drowned, in pools of wine in the wine cellar!
BURTSEV, THE WAITER
If one wished to tell scandal of the Winter Palace,
Pasha, one needn't begin at the first night of the
revolution! You are not the only witness of the
first days of the revolution. You would throw dirt
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241
on the whole idealism of the Russian people during
that mad first-taste of freedom. You dare not
charge that the mass of us conducted ourselves in a
reckless way. You might recall the watchword of
those days that passed from mouth to mouth among
us: “Be sober, be worthy of freedom!" You know
that the soldiers who did disgrace the people’s honor
were savagely attacked.
Peopou kino
FRANK PLAISTEAD
But this state of the people's Puritanism did not
last long! Human nature is human nature! The
Bolsheviks got tired of their own lofty idealism, and
now each man of them strikes out for himself. I
know one commissar in this city who has nearly
enough money scraped together to go away with.
How is it that your Bolshevik justifies riding, him-
self, in first-class railroad wagons, occupying the
logia at the theatres, monopolizing the automobiles
of the city, requisitioning for himself the finest resi-
dences !
BURTSEV, THE WAITER
The devil! I don't see why a Bolshevik shouldn't
ride in a first-elass wagon, if he chooses to spend his
money on that particular comfort. And as for the
fine houses -- in which any one family would get
lost, I should think — if they are not suitable for
schools or hospitals, then why shouldn't the com-
missars - have the luck of living in them; and have
automobiles, too; you wouldn't destroy these fine
things, would you! All the fine buildings, the lovely
242 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
church towers and monasteries at a distance, the big
factories, brilliantly lighted in the late afternoons of
winter, the furs and jewels of women,- all these
things we fellows like; we do not destroy them! We
look long at such beautiful pictures as Chastleevy
paints; it is only the portraits marked with the
imperial arms that we destroy! - Well! I must
hurry away to wait on Misha and Pavel, the two
sailor boys over there; they want their fourth ice-
cream; it is a habit with them to eat four of an
evening; and if they pay for them, why shouldn't they
have them!
(BURTSEV hurries away to wait on the
sailors.)
JUDGE SEMYONOV
Burtsev is your idealist from below! We all know
what a thoroughly good chap he is, and what a
sensible one, too! The Russian Proletariat, if repre-
sented by such men as he, instead of by the irrespon-
sible extremists that now have their party in hand,
wouldn't be so bad, you know! True enough, since
the revolution, the masses have attacked those who
were caught in drunken brawling, or looting, or in
any other act of taking advantage of popular rule.
Such is a people's idealism! It is fine to think that
at heart the common people know what is decent,
what is fit to keep, what is fit to throw away! We
intelligentsia may rely on them to support the right
measures ---- indeed, we shall need their support, if
the right is to triumph. Moreover, I think they
U
WHOLE CLOTH
243
may be able to settle the great problems of industry,
themselves; for it is their own problem, after all, isn't
it!
When I was in London last, a friend, a Labor
member of parliament, took me to see “ The City,"
the old part of London. The most interesting sight
to me was The Guildhall. Hanging from its time-
darkened rafters were the lively colored banners of
the carpenters, the masons, the shoemakers, the silver-
masters, the bankers! I was thrilled! I pictured
in my mind some larger hall where representatives
of all a nation's labor might meet — where the real
muscle and brain of the people might speak direct
- that this should be the nation's governing body!
: FRANK PLAISTEAD
Thriiling indeed! But too idealistic!
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
Syndicalism!
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
It seems a shame to me that good Russians like
the Judge and the Teacher, who fight for the same
general principles, should quarrel over details of
policy. What Judge Semyonov has just now said,
sounds to me like an argument for a government by
workmen; what more Bolshevism than this can the
Teacher desire?
ALEXIS
This little difference between the positions of the
Social-Revolutionary and the Bolshevik, Chastleevy,
244 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
may become great enough, ultimately, to divide the
whole nation into two camps, and you and I will
have to choose with which crowd we shall cast our
lot. The Social-Revolutionaries, being the right
party of the only two strong parties in the country,
attract many of the conservatives into a coalition
with them; they are patronized by the non-socialist
elements, and will be persuaded that it is only polite
to repay them with a compromise.
- JUDGE SEMYONOV
Yes, there is a difference between us. We Social-
Revolutionaries get along with other people; we
recognize that there are other people” to get
along with. The Bolsheviks entirely ignore certain
parts of the public, certain interests of all Russia
together. The Bolshevik workman of course shouts
and waves his cap for Bolshevism -- Bolshevism puts
his interest above all other interests. On the other
hand, it is not so patently for the interest of in-
tellectuals like the Teacher and Alexis to support a
rule by the working class — unless just for the
distinction of being humanitarian and “ advanced”;
these few choice souls are simply idealists, men to
spin theories, to write books which may keep us men
of affairs in mind of ultimate goals. Their only
mistake is to try to associate themselves with poli-
tics, with the dirty, tiresome, everyday struggle to
make the crowd move on, - to cajole, to teach, to
compel it !
I never draw my conclusions as to the merit of any
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245
O
EIVITCH
public measure by the number of idealists supporting
it. An idealist is a good man who judges everybody
by himself. Now Burtsev here is a good Bolshevik;
he thinks all his fellows are just as honest and un-
selfish as he himself. If all the citizens were like
Burtsev we shouldn't need any laws at all. Ninety
per cent. of them are not; they have to be watched
and hemmed in by the law and its guardians. I have
not been a lawyer for nothing. Many highly re-
spected citizens come to me to be advised just how
honest it is necessary to be to come within the law;
they dodge taxes on principle!
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
You make a fine devil's advocate, Judge! They
do say that honesty is found only among primitive
and uncivilized peoples such as the Chinese and the
Lapps. At any rate, we can vouch for the absolute
honesty of Russia's old peasantry. Much of the
dishonesty of the civilized Western peoples, in my
opinion, is traceable to the bad customs of an eco-
nomic system which in many respects resembles a
gambling table. Even so, gamblers will play the
game according to their own rules. Business men
and lawyers have their own codes. And generally
men will keep faith where they are trusted to do so.
At the university a few years ago some of the pro-
fessors, including me, decided to put men upon their
honor not to cheat in our own examinations, and,
since then, I believe that in our examinations the
cheating has been the least. I know you will say that
246
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
because I am only a good man and an idealist, my
support of Bolshevism can count neither for, nor
against, it. Or, again, Burtsev is a Bolshevik, and
yet, you admit a sensible fellow ; so you put down his
fault as idealism, he doesn't understand human na-
ture! I am wearied with these arguments ad
hominem. Why must we reason about principles
wholly on the basis of personalities? What should
it be for or against Bolshevism, that among the
Bolsheviks are found liars, thieves, opportunists,
churchmen, longshoremen, or idealists? Have you
not idealists among the Social-Revolutionaries?
What is an idealist, anyway? Isn't every man some-
what of an idealist? If an idealist is the man who
works out the principles of action, who reckons
with philosophy; if an idealist is the man in a move-
ment who is there because a rationalist or religious,
is the idealist negligible? It is a common mistake to
suppose, because the work of the idealist is from
mind to mind, from suggestion to deliberate plan,
and as slow as any growth, that he is ineffective.
But it may be just as well that this mistake persists:
it gives the idealist an unsuspected leverage over his
opponent.
ALEXIS
Can't one say, Teacher, that the idealist will be
in great demand by the new political realism! These
“facts,” these truths of the human relationships -
can they not best be observed by the type of mind
peculiar to the idealist,- keen, imaginative, un-
trammeled by precedent or prejudice?
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2417
STS
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
Most assuredly Bolshevism has need of idealists !
The greatest “ facts” for the Bolshevik must be
human love and human faith; the old system, though
it had Christianity for a foster mother, lost sight
of them; the new realism, they must stare in the
face! Government, itself, is by faith; it is marvel-
ous to what subtle social laws men will react. The
idealist you will generally find is a man of faith, him-
self; he believes that love and faith are in human
nature; he plans and acts with reference to these
subtle, social laws that bind men. It is he, I think,
who takes the natural course; and when artificial
and unspiritual systems, codes, and governments de-
velop, it is he who must call people back to the right
course. The leaders of Bolshevism must be men of
faith: Bolshevism is founded on the mutual trust of
workmen, individually and collectively.
For lack of faith in their ideals, many well-inten-
tioned, half-Bolshevik gentlemen of the Bourgeoisie
fail to advance -- to use a word which the Judge
just now used ironically. They would like to join
hands with the Bolsheviks; they assent to the prin-
ciples of Bolshevism; but they stop on the edge of
the stream and will not jump in. Good men! is it
that you do not trust brothers of a different bring-
ing-up; that you are deterred by class-pride; that
you hesitate to sell all and give to the poor, and
think: “What will become of me without my clean
linen, my private library, and the background of re-
finement for friendship!” Alas! that you cannot
TI
248
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
see that all these things would be added unto you, in
counterpart, or, yea, even in greater measure, by
an act of faith on your part.
The Bolshevik can accomplish marvels: he believes !
Fantastic, misplaced, unquestioning, impatient be-
lief, maybe; nevertheless, it is pounding and surging,
ceaselessly, on and on, out of the depths of the ocean
of humanity. Like a tidal wave Bolshevism will
carry along with it the masses of mankind; there is
the inevitability of social evolution in it. For these
new social ideas, once they really have a hold on the
masses, will be the first dictates to action, no matter
how reasonable or unreasonable; they will gain the
victory complete; they will reign potently as the
religion of the masses.
Meantime, the Bourgeoisie become fatalistically
inert. They refuse to believe that the people can
do anything without their leadership; they forget
the fecundity of the people to produce their own
leaders when it needs them. In the English Rebellion
of the seventeenth century and in the French Revo-
lution, the people completely renounced its old lead-
ers. Let our Russian Bourgeoisie — the clean
scribes and Pharisees who write clever books and
make pungent speeches --- scornfully count, if they
will, the day till their return to power; they may be
sure that this present scornful self-importance of
theirs is the only importance they will ever have !
They are the old surface that covered the mouth of
a crater; they are now the buried ones, buried be-
WHOLE CLOTH
249
neath tons of burning lava that still flows straight
from the very bowels of mankind.
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
Sansculottism! Hail Carlyle of the Russian
Revolution!
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
The ideas of Bolshevism are working in the masses
over the wide world like yeast! The war-lords con-
tribute from their money-bags to stop the menace.
They use the censor, the prison, and their echoing
press. They fail to see that these are weapons of
putty pitted against sharpest steel. It is unbelief
pitted against belief! Just as it was at the time of
the French Revolution! What though the Girondins
had the best of the argument! They had learned
to argue out of books and in my lady's parlor!
But the Mountain was a yeasty place. There blood
was thick. There Faith was not scant! The be-
lievers were sweaty and hot-hearted. They were
moved from within, they knew not the working of
the mystery. And something great and strong,
born out of their belief, has endured down to the
present generation, and now in its maturity, impreg-
nated by a faith even more virile, has brought forth
our Bolshevik Revolution.
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
And like the French Revolution, it will usher in
a reaction, some such dictator as Napoleon. It is
of quick growth, and it will have a quick death,
а
)
250 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
ALEXIS
Of course if you will look superstitiously to the
past; if you will find in history only cycles ---
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
And why should this revolution be more perma-
nent than others?
ALEXIS
Because this is 1900 and not 1800. Because the
possess greater solidarity than the peasants and
detached workmen of the past. Because this Revolu-
tion is a product of a war and its camp fields like
nothing of the past. Understanding is being bred
there. And strong feeling, too! These present rev-
olutions will endure because they rest on the strong
feelings of the masses; it is religion with them.
They have been bankrupt in religion too long. Now
at last they may discard a religion of sticks and
stones, of crosses and icons, of theologies made ex
cathedra out of the childish metaphysics of Syrian,
Egyptian and decadent Greek, mystics and sophists
— a medicine man's religion. The cumbersome old
religion is being dismantled along with the arma-
ments. Its charm is ceasing to work any longer.
The new religion, which is replacing it, contains the
germs of a genuine brotherhood: military force will
only a little longer bid the workmen come and go;
soon they will stir only when moved by a sense of
duty inculcated by this new religion. The old re-
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251
:
ligion divided men. The new religion must unite
them; it must be catholic and international !
FRANK PLAISTEAD
We've outgrown Catholicism; that's absence of
thought. As soon as your workmen begin to think,
there will be divisions in the church of the Prole-
tariat. As now you have Orthodox, old believers,
Baptists, and Atheists ; so then there will be single-
taxers, three-hour-a-day men, the skilled tradesmen,
the syndicalists!
ALEXIS
The sect-phase has no place in the new religion!
In many of our Russian churches one sees painted
the seven councils of the church. Each council is
represented as a trial scene. In the center is the
Emperor; on his right hand sit the men of God with
halos above their heads; on his left, sit the heretics,
a black, defiant, interesting lot. So men have been
declared right or wrong according to the decrees of
the greatest hairsplitters. This is typical of the
old religion as it is of the old political partisanship.
In the future men will disagree in politics and in
religion, but it must be as to real interests, and the
interests of the Catholic brotherhood must always
predominate.
FRANK PLAISTEAD.
It is very easy for young chaps like you to talk
of the old and the new, as if the world grew up only
with them. With you and your fellow-revolution-
252 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
aries, even God is out of date. You are all atheists
or agnostics, I'll warrant. Now, confess, Gospadeen
Alexis Zolodeen, do you believe in God?"
ALEXIS
If we wish our dialogue of this evening to get any-
where, you must excuse me just now from any elab-
oration of my idea of God. But I need not spar
with you: I may honestly say I do not believe in
the God of Christianity. The war has been the
greatest piece of atheism in all history: it puts out
of countenance the God Christians worship. It
denies that there is a God of men; it allows only for
a God of the kings and leaders of people. The ruler
of one people hurls his anathemas at another people
in the name of God. But such a Divinity, called
upon for victory and propitiated with the blood of
hundreds of thousands of victims, cannot be a God
of men, a God of human hearts. This God, the God
of the war-lords, seems to me as hollow, as dead, as
unresponsive to the prayer of a heated man as that
Moloch of the Isarelites, compounded out of the gold
and silver of an itching fleshliness. This God seems
to approve of men according to the country they
live in, or the amount of property they possess. The
Bolshevik speaks in the name of no such empty tribal
God; he speaks for no national church; he builds up
no philanthropic institutions at the dictation of a
property-holding class.
FRANK PLAISTEAD
You have gone far enough, young man! One can
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253
readily see that socialism and religion are all one to
you. You overlook the fact that the Christian God
you so lightly dismiss has prevailed during all these
twenty centuries of civilized man on earth!
ALEXIS
The Bourbons reigned long, and the Romanoffs
long, during all the years of civilized Russia. But
when the last Czar's crown fell, with it fell that ven-
eration for the crown-bearer which was supposed to
be ineradicably planted in the Russian people: they
were ready for something purer and truer to ven-
erate. The Christian God has also been thought to
stand absolute and fixed forever, with certain perma-
nent qualities, among the European peoples. But
with the advent of a new religion of the people, such
a God, an improved Israelitish Javeh, is cast into
the lumber-room where the socially outworn and
vestigial usages of the race lie, forgotten by all
except the scholars and romancers. The God of the
new religion must not be an old man contemplating
what fine thing he has done; but live and growing, a
young God, strong and beautiful and passionate --
to direct us as we go on with him creating a better
world! Look, look! here comes the beggar's girl
again, to-night. Her singing is of the new religion!
(There has approached a BEGGAR, a sturdy
old fellow with staff in hand, accompanied by
a young girl. The girl sings in front of the
café. She is like some fresh wild thing from
the country! Not sweet; rather her manner
254
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
is tragic and beyond her years. She is
mysteriously detached from her singing, her
mind seems not to be in the park at all. Yet
she captivates those who listen in the thick
circle already crowded around her. The
young men are fascinated not only by her
voice, but by her figure, as well: for, as she
sings, she dances, wildly tossing her arms.
Her long black hair is beautiful! These men
who are held spell-bound by her have, to use
the common expression, “ gone to the
gypsies." After the singing the old man
passes the hat. He comes upon the veranda
and to the corner table.)
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
Tell us, father, is yonder girl who has fascinated
us with her singing, your granddaughter, or other
relative of yours?
THE BEGGAR
She is my granddaughter, Nastya, my son Vassili's
girl. Do you enjoy her singing?
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
Very much! I have not enjoyed singing so much
in a long time! Have you been walking the way of
the world long, father?
THE BEGGAR
You seem interested in me, sir! Would you really
like to hear my story?
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255
SEVERAL
Yes! Tell us about yourself!
THE BEGGAR
I have not always been a beggar; I was a beggar
when I was young, and I am one now that I am old,
but for twenty years I was a landholder. My father
was a serf on the estate of Nicolai Vladimirivitch
Tyzenbak, twenty versts from Nishni. I did not
like the plowing and sowing and reaping on the
estate. When I was in the fields I would feel very
lonely and very far from God. The City seemed to
me a happier place and so to the city I came. Is
it not strange that I should so dislike the country,
having lived there myself as a boy, while Nastya, my
granddaughter here, she prays to live in the country?
She is always dreaming of being a peasant's wife!
Well! When I came to the city I found that very
much I loved to be on the streets where always are
many people passing and it is merry, and so I became
a walker of the world. I chose to stand all day
near the holy shrine of Saint Sergei. Many happy
years I spent so. I married.
Then the people who make our laws at the city of
Saint Petersburg made a new law, under which, so
my friends in the country informed me, I received a
share in some land on the Tyzenbak estate which
had fallen to our family. It made me proud to be
a landholder, and that day I heard of this I burned
a large candle at the shrine of Saint Sergei. I re-
turned to the country and remained ten years, but
256
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
all that time I longed very much to be back on the
city streets. So I let Pavel Ivanovitch take my
small strip of land and pay me rent out of every
harvest. On this rent and the profits from selling
little articles at the bazaar, I made a living for my-
self and my orphaned granddaughter, Nastya.
Then came the present Czars to rule in the city of
Saint Petersburg, and they made new laws and took
away my land in the country, because, as they said,
I was only a landholder; I did not plow and sow
and reap myself, but took rent from the harvest. So
now I have to walk the world again, for I cannot
make enough roubles at my little stall in the bazaar
to keep myself and Nastya, my granddaughter,
when the price of bread is more than five roubles a
pound.
JUDGE SEMYONOV
Michail Sergeivitch, here you find another peasant
who hates the Bolsheviks! You know, father, of
course, that it is the Bolsheviks who have done you
this injury!
GUEST AT ADJOINING TABLE
Father, beware of the counter-revolutionaries who
take a sudden interest in your welfare! The Bol-
sheviks will drop money into your hat as often as
any people.
A SECOND GUEST
(A companion to the first.) Don't deceive the old
man, Theodor! The Bolsheviks are going to keep
beggars off the streets — in the public interest!
-
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257
THE BEGGAR
I know little about Czars, gentlemen! God gave
me the land in the country and now God has taken it
away! I thank you for your kindness, gentlemen.
God bless you! .
(The BEGGAR rejoins his granddaughter,
and they both move on.)
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
This man of your people, Alexis, seems not yet to
understand that God and the Czar are socially
vestigial!
ALEXIS
The old man does not understand, but the girl
who sang, will. Last night I heard her singing some
revolutionary songs to a large crowd; she wasn't
singing for money only! Her singing is a piece
with Mordkin's dance of the Italian Beggar, which
we saw him do when he was here on his last Volga
tour. The Great Revolution is all there. First the
beggar is represented as dejected, as without idea,
as unawakened. Then bursts upon his mind his
real occasion to feel proud and glad, and, waving
his red scarf, he dances with abandon, he dances out
the happiness in him!
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
He spends the riches of himself !
D
ALEXIS
Yes, he spends of himself! Did you ever experi-
ence the discovery of a depthless mine of gold all
258
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
within yourself: finer and purer than pure gold,
usable, inexhaustible! It is a mad discovery! To
sing, to dance, to make something beautiful, that is
the only way to express one's unutterable joy!
These revolutionaries are expressing themselves, good
or bad, in Bolshevism. To the people in Europe
who read of it, it may appear silly; but to us who
witness it -- to me, it is very human! alive! and
freshly born! it expresses what before had been only
a hope and a belief! It is like dancing and singing!
Mordkin expresses its exaltation! The beggar's
granddaughter expresses its freshness and wildness,
its strength and its weakness!
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
Alexis, you, yourself, express the Revolution !
Through you, I see something I did not know was in
Bolshevism before. You speak as a poet about it;
your speech is alive and freshly born!
ALEXIS
I speak as I myself feel it. Before it came, I
only know how many times I felt dejected; how con-
tinually I felt hampered and repressed by those re-
ligious and cultural norms which seem to rest lightly
enough on others, but are, to me, intolerable, because
in direct opposition to what tells me in my own heart
is beautiful and true. Perhaps what tells me in my
heart of these beautiful and true things, is God.
But it is too awfully human, I think; it cannot be
a deity: it is so much a part of me; it seems like hav-
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259
11
ing somewhere, safe and always accessible, the fresh-
est, most fragrant and altogether lovely Spring
Garden where I may walk and feel absolutely free;
feel first one thing, and then another — I feel that
I am an exquisite rose, a bluebird flying through the
air, the last notes of some short theme of
Tschaichovsky! And so I have good feelings, which
my Divinity approves, when I hear this beggar girl
sing; when I see Mordkin dance; when I visit Chast-
leevy's studio and watch him paint, and hear him
talk about his work as if no one ever before painted
anything quite so fine! Also, when I listen to The
Teacher: he is a real teacher who every day sees
some new thing the like of which was never before,
but before was something a little less, something a
little less significant; he sees in what plain soldiers
and shoemakers do and declare remarkable evidences
of his theories; and all his theories are so simple and
tentative; what he holds to-day he may enlarge,
diminish or wholly dismiss, to-morrow.
And in the same way I like these Bolsheviks im-
measurably well; I cannot tell why; but that within
me which is continually telling what to like, tells me
the Bolsheviks are interesting! So I watch them.
And, as it is the way usually, what I watch and study
I take into my heart. When I see the Red Guards
marching, and when I read in the bulletins that they
are meeting with success, I am elated. I hang
around the parks where they are holding festivals,
and I stop and watch their “ praetorian guards "
dash down the streets in the automobiles that they
260 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
VO
have taken from the Bourgeoisie, and I smile; and
when the man beside me says " what rascals!” I
repeat “what rascals ! ” but I have a different mean-
ing; it is of no use to explain to him the difference
of meaning, for then we should discuss and discuss,
and he would describe many foul Bolshevik deeds and
many foul Bolshevik men.
· All the same, I find myself secretly wishing to be
a Bolshevik! I wonder, should I have my wish,
should I still have my Spring garden to walk out
into! Of late, I become more and more convinced
that there is only one way to keep always within
walking distance of that garden, and that is to seek
unfalteringly such master-joys as I find: joy in the
singing girl, in the man like Mordkin possessed with
some mad conceit, in active minds like Chastleevy's
or the Teacher's. So I shall continue not to be
ashamed to rejoice when the Red Guards go by, and
to think as well of the new rulers as it is possible.
· And I shall continue to believe that the Great Revo-
lution has something to do with the greater happi-
ness I have enjoyed since it happened: I feel decidedly
less hampered and repressed!
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
It is the poet of us who has been speaking!
FRANK PLAISTEAD
Perhaps so! That may explain why I have not
understood perfectly. I never was strong on poetry
- gardens, Spring, the bluebird's last notes, and so
on! I do not understand this heart-acceleration of
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261
I
Alexis at his “Great Revolution"; I must confess I
can't see anything poetical about dirty revolution-
aries.
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
Just read Shelley, Plaistead! “ Prometheus Un-
bound”!
FRANK PLAISTEAD
Prometheus and Shelley may be good Bolsheviks
for all I know; I do not pretend to be acquainted
with the leaders of such movements. But, damn it!
I can't see why your first revolution - the March
Revolution — wasn't poetic and “ great ” enough to
give play to all the exuberance of you excitable
Russians!
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
We Russians are not excited about Mediocrities!
There is no exuberance, except that of comedy, about
a sham revolution. The blind ones, the self-involved
intellectuals, those slow of heart — to them the
March Revolution was just right; neither too hot
nor too cold, served up in a dish neither too large
nor too small! The Bourgeoisie wanted their own
little revolution, of course. The Capitalist plays
the revolutionary game: he is out for the same ob-
jects apparently as the true revolutionary; only
when he gets near the goal he will never put the ball
Over.
JUDGE SEMYONOV
How can you pretend, Michail Sergeivitch, that
the March Revolution was conducted by capitalists!
We Social-Revolutionaries were behind it. Who are
262 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
the true revolutionaries, time and intelligent Russia
will decide. We Social-Revolutionaries offer the
same promises to Russia as you; and we are more
likely to fulfill them. For we educated people con-
trol the agencies of the Past, we have the key to the
treasury of the Past. Tell me, learned Teacher, how
can a people live, one with the other, without law!
Law is evolutionary; the law of to-morrow must be
based on the law of to-day. Your Bolsheviks are
anarchists: they recognize neither time nor measure;
they only destroy, they cannot replace. They rend
the temple of the law and there is among them no
master who can rebuild it.
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
Rend the temple of the law! That temple is al-
ready crumbling. The great modernists of the law,
the sociological jurists, have long been undermining
it, doing to the law what the higher critics did to
theology. Let me carry the analogy between law
and theology still further! I have heard you say,
Judge, that the church is but a shell; that its theol-
ogy is based on an error, made at the Council of
Nicea, and that since then the trinitarian dogma has
led the churchmen a merry chase through number-
less tomfooleries. And when the hierarchy of the old
Russian church was overthrown a year ago and the
radical priests were set up in power and donned the
brilliant robes and the bishops' miters, you declared
in a burst of religious fervor: “Why such fuss over
half changes; why not wholly clean the house of
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263
God at once and be done with mummery, the chanting
of sonorous nonsense, the kissing of icons, and other
parade and pageant of a sensual religion!” Didn't
you say something like this, Judge?
JUDGE SEMYONOV
I am out of all patience with the archaism of our
Russian church.
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
No less, Judge, am I out of all patience with the
archaism of our law. I think the law is an empty
shell; that the prevailing property-right theories
of recent court decisions are based on an error; that
the law got on the wrong track, was forced into the
service of powerful commercial interests; that the
early law like the early church was communistic;
the sole rights; private rights came later.
JUDGE SEMYONOV
And you would have law retrocede to that point
where private rights began!
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
Certainly not! The Bolshevik is the more, not
the less, an individualist! There will be more law,
not less, when the present bulky, wasteful, take-if-
you-can, hit-or-miss system is supplanted. But,
first, Judge, before we have more law, we must have
less: we must indeed rend your temple of the law,
we must inde, we have more supplanted. But
264 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
already topheavy! This body of law must perish,
together with the System, alongside which, and in
support of which, it has been built. For law shares
the guilt of its partner; it wears the same ugly,
grotesque face! We shall have to go back to na-
tural law -- just as we go back to natural
religion! You admit we cannot piece out the
old religion. Well! there is no more reason in evolu-
tion to graft the new law on the old than to graft
the new religion on the old. New wine, you remem-
ber, friend, requires new bottles !
JUDGE SEMYONOV
But how in the world do you make out that there
will be more law under Bolshevism?'
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
More law because of more competing interests!
The inauguration of social equality will not produce
the simplification you expect: when the conflict be-
tween the classes ceases, then, promptly, disinte-
gration, horizontally, according to the thousand and
one real interests of men, begins. The area and in-
tensity of conflict subject to court jurisdiction will
be increased: to meet the greater demand on it, the
machinery of the law must become more elastic, and
cognizant of finer discriminations. Do not fear,
Judge, that the legal mind will want for exercise;
on the contrary, a legal mind, which is not quick,
original and flexible, will be valueless !
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265
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
Trust these Bolsheviks to invent new laws! Look
at any one of their flaming news-sheets! One-half,
orders and decrees! There are more Soviets in the
city than inhabitants! There is a commissar for
dogs! There is to be one for the park pigeons !
And some crazy night-shirter proposes one for styles
of dress! Everything is by card or permit. You
are correct, Teacher: the Bolshevik will multiply the
laws — so much so, that there will not be freedom,
even to die, without permit! I protest I prefer by
far those happy lawless days under the easy-going
administration of such public robbers as you and
your legal fraternity, Judge!
JUDGE SEMYONOV
My fraternity would starve, Pasha, if it hadn't
yours to feed upon! – Teacher, after all, you seem
to give us lawyers no small place in your Proletariat
state! You trace well the probable course of de-
velopment of the law; only, if anything, you over-
rate the importance of the law in the society of the
future. I should like to see less law; my idea is that
law is but a makeshift for natural justice. Law
holds people to what they ought to do unbidden. It
prevents the giving of free rein to wanton desire
and strength. It is the lack of law that explains the
present anarchy. Your Proletariat has free rein;
see what injustice prevails! Law is codified disci-
pline. Tell me, Teacher, how do the Bolsheviks pro-
pose to maintain personal and public discipline?
266
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
FRANK PLAISTEAD
That is a point which I think, also, is of major
importance. Discipline is absolutely necessary, if
a people keeps its own respect and gets business
done! And will you pardon me a criticism of the
Russians — remember I wish to speak cautiously,
as always when I criticize Russia; of course, I really
don't know her yet! -- but it seems to me that the
Russians as a people are very much lacking in disci-
pline. This fact explains many of their weaknesses;
though, perhaps it should be added, it accounts for
some of their charms.
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
Ah! we have explained to us now, Mr. America,
wherein lies the charm for you of our Russian women,
from whom you choose your wife!
(BURTSEV brings in a tray of bottles for
the corner table. He stands at the shoulder
of CHASTLEEVY; drinks half a glass of beer
from CHASTLEEVY's bottle.)
CARL MARDINBURG
Lack of discipline is the vulnerable point in Bolshe-
vism. Principle is one thing; method and results,
another. We Austrian Social Democrats are pretty
close to Bolshevist principles, but we stick to win-
ning methods. We shall be the dictators of Austria
after the war. It is by our inflexible discipline that
we shall in time break the back of the parties to the
right of us. The Bolsheviks trust to the miracles
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267
of faith, or to poetry - they speak finely like this
young gentleman, meanwhile allowing their army to
die of dry rot: they remove the death-penalty; they
remove all officers. I don't say their army isn't
brave! It's so eager that it fires off all its shells
before the Czechs are within striking distance — and
then has to run. But, at last, Trotsky and his staff
recognize the point of weakness in their army: now
they are looking about for men with officers' train-
ing. They have found me for one man; to-morrow
I go down to the Kazan front for them.
ALEXIS
In the service of the Fatherland?
CARL MARDINBURG
It may ultimately serve the Socialist Austria that
is to be after the war!
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
The American and the Austrian seem to answer
the question about Bolshevik discipline as they ask
it. The disciplined Americans and Germans are de-
termined, first of all, to get something done. The
Bolsheviks are not much concerned to get something
done as to decide what shall be done. They are less
concerned, yes I am sure they are less concerned —
how efficient an army they have, than what they
have an army for. Discipline consists first of a
body of rules and customs, and, second, of the en-
forcement of these. The Bolshevik accepts this
definition. But, first, he insists that the rules and
268 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
customs agree with the principles of the Bolshevik
Brotherhood, and second, that they be observed in
the Bolshevik spirit. The spirit of Bolshevik disci-
pline is the development, expression, and government
of self: it is self-discipline. It is the act of those
who know their own will. Autocratic or democratic
armies may conquer the whole world, and yet have
no purpose of their own, accepting discipline for
its own sake.
CARL MARDINBURG
Whatever its discipline, the Red Army lost Sam-
ara, Simbirsk, and Kazan.
BURTSEV, THE WAITER
(Stands between CHASTLEEVY and JUDGE SEMY-
ONOV. Has been intent on the conversation; his
head hanging out over his body.) The Red Army
will march back over Kazan, Simbirsk and Samara.
It is becoming stronger with every day, despite the
stories circulated by the Contra-Revolutionaries that
the Czechs are only, now a hundred, now fifty versts
from Nishni. Batteries are beginning to arrive
from the factories; the Petrograd, Moscow, and
Smolensk workmen delegations are already at the
front! (Shrieking whistles are heard below on the
river. One boat after another takes up the long-
drawn-out, blood-curdling cry.) There go our army
boats now to the front; with more contingents, prob-
ably! These workmen make for us something we
can be proud of — an army of the Proletariat. We
conscript from our own ranks, in our own interest!
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269
This Red Army of ours is new; it has hardly had
the time to make for itself those new rules and cus-
toms of which the Teacher speaks, but, never fear;
we discipline ourselves, we shall find what rules we
need.
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
The people will go on looking for their self-gov-
ernment till eternity, and, meanwhile, their rules and
customs are violence, insolent bullying, and the “red
claw"! Indeed, the silly people hold the scepter;
right is their own caprice; they who should feel the
rod now thrash their betters with it, hit or miss.
Their dictators, insolent jackanapes, meet in secret
cabinet, and tell off to die somewhere in the dark,
the brave men who provoke their resentment, not
even allowing them the honor of riding publicly to
their gallows in a tumbril!
ALEXIS
Three-quarters of the “violence" and the “red
claw" is the product of your own jolly imagination,
Pasha! Many Bolsheviks who were down and are
now up, demand some sacrifice to their vengeance.
Many make the power of office a brutal tyranny,
Many, with more eagerness than good sense, plunge
headlong into random suspicion and hatred of
bourgeois men and women, and refuse to reckon them
fellow-citizens, candidates for the Proletariat on
trial. Of these false or over-eager ones, we who
hate bloodshed that is not honest, are ashamed.
But it is few that are bloody! I have seen the face
C
270 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
of the president of one committee against contra-
revolution; I looked into it to discover what the face
of an executioner might be like; but what I saw in
the face was a soft heart, a very soft heart!
It is too much to expect that a clean-sweeping
revolution should be without hurt or pain — as
harmless as acting on a New Year's resolution! But
in the future we may look for cooler judgment among
the Bolsheviks; there will come their rules and cus-
toms; already one may see them acquiring habits :
the Soviet system is getting its feet! The strong
leaders are restraining the impulsive ones. There
must be no Terror! Those revolting deliberate cruel-
ties which are found in all parts of the world touched
by the scourge of this war, must cease here; they
give our panting enemies the material they want for
creating a “Russian Terror."
T1
CARL MARDINBURG
Youngster, you find order in disorder, judgment
in children, rules in anarchy!
ALEXIS
It's of no use to argue! You refuse to see how
good can come out of boisterous, dramatic, young
Humanity, as, stung by the bitter lessons of the war,
it renews the struggle to know truth, and makes a
right-about-face turn to get upon another road.
To me, it is remarkable that at crucial periods, when
masses of men feel and act upon the strength of
quick collective thought, new forms and new leaders
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271
rise ready to hand, as if nature herself has prepared
for the emergency! I never read the story of the
French people in their revolutionary crisis without
fresh wonder, and every day is renewed my wonder
at the spontaneous governments which have arisen
in communist Russia. In each village was born a
republic overnight. At first each local Soviet is
like a monarch, sovereign in its own realm; all things
seem to be in confusion. Your gentleman who thinks
only in terms of large conglomerations of humanity,
who derives satisfaction in having people lumped and
tagged and centralized under a crown or a constitu-
tion, is quite put out by such a complex of auton-
omies as Russia presents to-day.
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
These centrifugal tendencies of Bolshevism are
pure Russian. The Russian is an individualist.
Our German, and our American, friend here find
much to condemn in Bolshevism. Much of this they,
condemn is Russian character. We Russians were
never intended for empire. We love our local liber-
ties. Like the ancient Greeks, we should be content
with city states. And the Bolsheviks really feel a
respect for the insubordination of small units.
When I was in Kazan a few weeks ago, I saw several
Tartar regiments, and in the course of business I
met a Tartar commissar. Perhaps it should have
hurt my pride to see this downtrodden race, up-
standing! My pride was touched; but only for
them, not against them!
272
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
MAN FROM THE CROWD BESIDE THE VERANDA
Ha! the Tartars have Kazan by the throat! It's
only by means of Tartar mercenaries that the Jew-
ish commissars keep control of the city. The Tar-
tars have forced the commissars to remove the Rus-
sian Cross from the top of the tower built in the
Kazan Kremlin to commemorate the Russian con-
quest of the Tartars in the sixteenth century, and
to put in its place the Moslem Crescent!
A TARTAR
Why shouldn't we have some rights! We're a
good third of the city of Kazan.
A JEW
Yes, why shouldn't we subjugated races have some
rights! Give to us a chance, and we will prove
ourselves to be but the better servants to our Russian
over-lords!
MAN FROM THE CROWD
Give you Jews a chance, servile swine, you'd soon
have all the rest of us your debtors!
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
Wait till after the Bolsheviks go! and you'll see
the most thorough pogrom Russia ever knew.
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
For shame! For shame, Pasha!
THE JEW
Man of hate! a pink rag rouses the bull in you.
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273
You believe in nothing but flesh and bones; flesh and
bones, classified, perfumed and painted. Sweating
flesh, flesh not well-tailored - Jewish, or Tartar, or
Armenian flesh, you turn up your nose at!
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
You're well hit, Pasha! It is a hopeful thing
about these Bolsheviks that they intend giving the
poor despised races a share in the government. In
this I believe the Bolsheviks are quite Russian.
They are not stingy with their liberties; as were, for
example, the Hungarians, with what Kossuth won
for them.
FRANK PLAISTEAD
The Bolsheviks are generous enough, God knows!
They are parceling out the country to the menial
classes here and there, leaving Russia's patriots a
long task later to recover them. Praise your Greek
city states, if you will, but, at the same time, recall,
will you please, your history a little further on, to
wise Alexander! The Bolsheviks not only have
allowed Finland, the Baltic Provinces, the Ukraine,
and Crimea, to break away; their own territory is
in a hundred pieces, which they can't even keep all
Bolshevik; there is no central control!
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
But there will come central control! That like
the new discipline – its rules and customs — will
come as Bolshevik institutions settle. For a parallel
of decentralization, I would refer you, Mr. America,
to your own history. For several years after your
274 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
freedom from the mother country was won, there
continued such a struggle of leaders, and parties,
and states, that we find on record how gravely the
founders of your nation despaired of arriving at any
national unity. And further was it not over the
right of states to secede that your Civil War, the
most bloody war in modern times till this, was
fought?
FRANK PLAISTEAD
You Russians know American history damn well!
But some of you put on it absurd interpretations.
You refuse to see it as a record of adventures in
just government; just but sane. We have never
danced the reel of extravagant radicalisms; at least,
where innovations have been thrust upon us by inter-
mittent demogogy, they have been checked by courts,
subsequent legislation, or disuse. All the same, we
have our ideals, as our outstanding leaders have
from time to time conceived and framed them. We
are not to be judged by the grasping, visionless
politicians that as often as not represent us. Judge
us by our best, by those who impersonate our durable
and traditional hardheadedness and idealism; just at
present, by Woodrow Wilson. In him you find your
disciplinarian with a vision; your humanitarian with
a sense of graded values. I didn't vote for him ; I'm
a Republican; but that's neither here nor there!
Will you be fair enough to accept him, as I do, as
our present spokesman?
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275
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
Wilson is a writer and an educator; he is the first
intellectual, strictly speaking, in your presidential
succession; an intellectual of sterner stuff than our
Russian type generally is, and all the more intract-
able in such errors of the intellectual as he may
run to. He has a well-considered, a well-seasoned,
his very own conception of democracy, neither more
nor less. He sincerely wishes to see this conception
of democracy sway the world's convocation for
peade. And for installing his ideas of national
rights, he has in mind very definite changes to be
made, especially on the part of his enemies.
Wilson champions the cause of a league of demo-
cratic nations. But does he acknowledge that, fun-
damentally, the league must be a federation of the
workmen of the world? Does he appreciate the fact
that before the war the workmen were the sole inter-
nationalists, and already had an “international”
after their own fashion? Or does Wilson seek merely
to improve the care with which the big brothers
watch over the little ones, the big brothers being the
right-minded brothers of the right-minded nations ;
the brotherhood being exercised, for the brothers,
not through them.
2
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
Just as Kerensky, so you tell me, would have
Bolshevism come for the people, but not through
them!
276
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
FRANK PLAISTEAD
You are clever, Professor! You are a regular
Bolshevik! Your suspicions and prejudices will not
permit you to see things as they are. You think
that all the while Wilson speaks eloquently he has
something up his sleeve! You see only his mailed
fist, you do not see the genuine humanity of the man.
You say we Americans do not mean what we said
when we came into the war; but the rest of Europe
has at last come to see that we are an idealistic peo-
ple; that we are not everlastingly with an eye to the
almighty dollar. Whatever Europe may think, we
are in an enviable position. We not only have
ideals; we have the power to enforce them; we hold
the key to the world situation. We have become
.
reckon with us, the enemy leaders already refer to
us, as such. This being so, we shan't have to shout
ourselves hoarse to be heard at the peace conference.
We have not gone about, and into war, without
knowing what we were doing: we are a practical
people. Our industry, our whole population --- all
classes – is united and organized to win this war!
CARL MARDINBURG
FRANK PLAISTEAD
Don't tell me what I mean! and don't use the
word “ bourgeois,” or any derivative thereof, in re-
ferring to America! I said all classes. The Amer-
ican Federation of Labor, surely representative of
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2717
.
our working classes, is working solidly behind the
war administration. We shall attend to our internal
problems after the war: we attend to one thing at
a time. If you Russians had waited till after the
war before attempting to clean your own house, you
would not now be bereft of the world's sympathy.
As it is, you have no honor among the nations, you
have gained internal famine and disorder, you con-
tribute Bolshevism and so but add to the dangers
already facing the brave men who fight for justice
among the nations.
Moreover, you will find you have prejudiced good
radicalism, setting back the rational progress of
Socialism in Europe a hundred years. Mr. Pro-
fessor, you and Alexis have been straining facts
and your own good sense here to-night, to make
out a case for Bolshevism; but surely this is be-
cause you do not understand the drift of your
theories. I have listened patiently, trying to see
if there mightn't be after all something in a move-
ment that undoubtedly has the support of some
good men, idealists or intellectuals. You ridicule
the Russian intellectual; I agree he is a pitifully
inconsequential fellow; well, what are the Bolshevik
leaders themselves if not intellectuals merely; stupid,
impractical and unbalanced, a millstone around the
neck of the true Russian people. Personally these
men may be irreproachable, even delightful.
Do not think I do not respect you, Professor — in
fact, I think I would admire you if you cast your
lot with the lower classes ; I believe your sympathy
278
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
with them is genuine enough: we all hereafter must
face more squarely the problems of the poor; we
must do away with poverty. But I feel you only
theorize, Professor; you are not in truth a Bolshevik.
If you are, it matters little; you will be able to
repent soon, before you have compromised your-
self: for the ogre of Bolshevism hurries off the scene
as quickly as it came on; it is only evanescent!
You Bolshevik-minded folks only talk in thin air.
If, when I get home, I think over this discussion, it
will seem like the stuff of dreams, as insubstantial as
the smoke of our cigarettes; and I shall have to
pinch myself to realize that I have been conversing
here with live men!
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
Perhaps you have not been “ conversing " with
us. Perhaps your mind has been turning nothing
over as we talked; at any rate, it did not meet
ours! Perhaps it was your mind you should have
pinched as you sat here. Men are alive, are real, to
you, perhaps, only when they move, physically!
Perhaps physical polity is all you see in the
state! You boast of the richest and most powerful
nation; rich in material things, strong in the equip-
ment of war. Indeed you Americans are at the top,
at the pinnacle of capitalism. Your capitalists shout
“ democracy” with the loudest: as much money can
be made in a democracy as under some other kind
of government. Your leaders will not compromise
with the German System to-day. To-morrow will
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279
they compromise with the American System; will
they allow it to remain the powerful autocracy it is;
will they curb your own cotton, coal, and iron kings;
will they stay the imperial expansion of your own
materialism? Will they admit where their real
wealth and power lie? Or will they continue to
think of the producers of your wealth as only one
part of it, as something to enter in the table of
statistics with the other resources, as problems of
poverty? Indeed, men like you, Mr. America, de-
clare your concern for labor; you talk about welfare
committees and labor policy boards: for you know
The System stands on labor; you know that all the
wealth, all the power, you boast of, is in your putty
feet; tons of human energy there; nothing unreal,
nothing thin, there! After not many years, you'll
not have to pinch yourselves to realize how live it is,
either!
You have given Bolshevism a challenge! You will
make it evanescent by saying it is so. It is a blow in
for your pride: and so you deny it; it cannot be, it
is not strong; you call it names; you delineate its
horrors; your leaders summon the nations of the
world to protest its terrorism in Russia. Terror-
ism? That which it suits you to call “ terrorismº
our land and population; in part, by the exaggera-
tion and misrepresentation of your censored and
well-disciplined press; but for the most part it is a
delusion, arising out of your own stupefaction at
280 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
1
C
seeing somewhere the “ democracy” which you have
so much in your mouths, actualized! We accept the
challenge! We scorn your stagy protests! we scorn
the insolence of your new-militarists, we scorn the
grossness of your riches. For we know how these
riches have been piled up by enslaving your masses,
your putty feet! We know how you keep them
menial, how you develop them into the patriots you
need: by playing upon their grosser passions and
prejudices, by feeding them with lies from your regi-
mented, bourgeois press; pulpit, and platform!
You come among us boasting of these enlightened
and liberty-loving menials, and bringing messages
in their name. You come here as we are passing
through the glory of free Russia at white heat, and
our order is only chaos to you, our words are
empty; you listen to our repudiated Bourgeoisie that
alone of us all you associate with, for their words
sound familiar; but to the birth-cries of big pregnant
Russia you stop your ears, as to something obscene.
You say we are idle, we do not do things as you.
God be praised we don't! Keep to yourself your
activities, your huge businesses, your uncanny
efficiency. If these things make men blind, if they
make men deaf, keep them to yourself ; we have native
ignorance abounding with us; we do not want ma-
chines brought in that will create more.
Finally, you come against us with your armies,
and with the cunning little men of Japan; all the
capitalisms send a quota for the expedition: the
cause interests capitalism everywhere! You bring
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281
us food and oh! you will do all sorts of things for
us, for the Russians whom you would make trustees
over the rest of us! To these right Russians you
express sorrow that you must come; you say it is
necessary as a military measure against your enemies
-- Germany's reason for trespassing on Belgium.
Rot! If to-morrow Germany succumbs, you will
nevertheless stay on under some pretext, your high
duty to this or that, your mandate to establish
right and justice! But we listen no longer to your
words! We fight! We are not pacifists. We fight
so well you call us Germans. Starvation is one of
your weapons. Well, then, we will starve !
There must be freemen in America and in England
who feel it a shame to starve brave workmen, and
to invade their young republic. These we will have
as our friends in your own arsenals, and call them
what dirty names you like, they will accomplish more
for us and the common cause than you can imagine.
You retort that we have our enemies at home in
Russia, you will say we are not Russia: we are of
the city, the peasants hate us; we are soldiers; we
are poor. Indeed there are many Russians who
hate us; we have been too uncompromising! They
hate us as much as you do, and for the same reasons.
You thought, at any rate you said, that our enemies
were in a majority, and that once your bright ban-
ners were planted on our shores, there would flock
to them countless thousands. Some have gone over
to you for bread, and, are with you the élite, those
few who had the money to flee to London or Paris
282 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
-- they, mind you, are your really denationalized
people, in their investments and in their pleasures !
But the Russians who count, you drive to us.
You make Bolshevism national, Russian. And why
are we less patriotic than your bourgeois fugitives?
Do we not love homeland as much as they? Is not
Russia holy to us? Are not her broad plains, her
busy rivers, her rich language, holy to us? Ah, but
we are more than Russian -- that is our fault. We
fight for more than Russia, you say! It was in the
name of the world proletariat we struck down Rus-
sian capitalism. Yes, and we are strong from that
struggle; we are desperate, too; for we have tasted
blood. We have become maddened with fire; by its
light we have seen, off not too far in the distance, a
better way of living! And this fresh strength of
ours, this madness, this vision, is not, as you know
only too well, for holy Russia alone, not alone for
her broad plains, for her busy rivers, for her mighty
populations; rather, it is dedicated to Brother
Workmen everywhere. And so from everywhere we
expect, we shall have, great increase to our ranks.
Ours is the force of a raging fire which cannot be
confined. You may stop it once, you may stop it
twice; but once engendered, it will not stay quenched.
Stamp it out in Russia, and it will flare up at your
own feet on another continent !
(The challenge of MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
strikes the men dumb! It is getting late, and
most of the promenaders have already left
the park. Over on a back path the BEGGAR'S
WHOLE CLOTH
283
grandchild can be heard singing the Russian
“ Marseillaise”; some soldiers in another
part of the park have taken up the refrain.
CHASTLEEVY and BURTSEV, who, all his other
customers having departed, had now taken
a seat at the corner table, sing with gusto the
last lines.)
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
You sing, Chastleevy, like a Bolshevik — with a
cracked voice!
CHASTLEEVY, THE ARTIST
Never mind, I do sing; that's something besides
laughing, which is all you do. You may make fun
of the singing of Bolsheviks; I admire them for it;
especially, if it is true, as they say, that they sing,
victorious or defeated.
1
BURTSEV, THE WAITER
They can sing when defeated, because they know
they are going to win in the end; nothing can stop the
soldiers of the Proletariat! Cover your Counter-
Revolutionary soldiers with medals, increase their
pay, fill them with liquor, demonize them with every
engine of hell; our fire shall consume their fire! Our
comrades are mad, if you like. They fight to finish a
work just begun. Workingmen come from the north,
workingmen come from the south, as the brave six
hundred marched on foot from Marseilles to Paris,
car-iraing! They march without trappings, with-
out the brilliant uniforms of officers. No wines or
284 SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
sweet chocolate in their equipment! Our comfort-
able officer-enemies seem to have a great deal of the
bright, convenient, and satisfying things which we
Bolshevik Russians find very attractive; nevertheless
they are not going to buy us with the old promises
of easier lives, nor with ships of food and money.
The liquor they offer us as bribes we will hurl into
the gutters, where we emptied our own liquor in those
first mad days of the Revolution. No, they are not
going to buy us with what they think is all we care
for! Nor are they going to deceive us again to take
service as Swiss guards for the palaces and royal
grounds they live in!
JUDGE SEMYONOV
Burtsev seems to know his French Revolution !
FRANK PLAISTEAD
Probably even he knows American history-oh,
you clever Russians!
LU
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
Burtsev has explained Bolshevik self-discipline bet-
ter than I did.
PASHA, THE GENTLEMAN
Discipline! The new Puritanism! The new state
of the Naked Truth, sans God, sans law, sans food,
sans good clothing, sans all the good things! There
will be no more wine, nothing the well-born may drink
to distinguish them from the hoi polloi! It will be
a drab existence we live, reduced to a bleared level!
WHOLE CLOTH
285
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH
It will not be Puritanism, nor Syndicalism, nor
Socialism, nor Anarchism, nor Libertinism, nor any
other sport movement, cult or tendency which you
disbelievers can cry out at and smother by derision.
It may be level for you: it will perform no jigs, cut
no capers, nor afford you any amusement. Doubt-
less, it will be distressfully level, a vast plain stretch-
ing endlessly, where roams every living creature,
where grows every green thing, where the rivers are
black with happy commerce! It will not be a French
Revolution. That was but a symptom, but a sick-
ness that frightened the Bourgeoisie. Of this revolu-
tion there will be no Carlyle that will presume to
write a history. Historians do not write of Deu-
calion and Pyrrha: they are an epic subject. With
the coming of Bolshevism is an end to the periods of
primitive man; the developed man will look back upon
the kings and rulers of his youth as at the best only
heroes with serious limitations; he will know the ape
in his line of ancestry; and he will not be ashamed,
neither will he take pride in it. It had to be!
Bolshevism comes in the twentieth century; now
we see it only in its infancy — formless, without clear
meaning. It will be no lovely thing, and there will
be no hypocrites flourishing to make it appear so.
It comes as the war itself —- unprecedented, of un-
believable proportions, cruel, sucking out more of
human energy than ever there seemed to be. But its
cruelty will not be, like that of the war, simianesque-
burlesque. It will be the cruelty of the irrevocable,
1
286
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
of the “done-for!” Not a punishment for foolish-
ness but its annihilation. If the industrial revolu- !
tion of a century ago was cruel, this revolution will
be murderous. It will displace; without proposition,
it will dispose! Many who were first shall be last,
and many who were last shall be first! It will not be
Utopia, Happiness Unmitigated! It will be a crass
thing, out of struggles, bitterness and woe com-
pounded; and the woe of the dreamers of Utopias, of
worlds without pain, will be very great! Bolshevism
brings not peace but a sharp sword. It is not
Pacifism — Pacifism is a step beyond; Bolshevism
only clears the way for many such expressions of
man's best spirits, of his high instinct for getting by
losing.
For, indeed, after the first freedom, the easiest, the
narrow freedom to be as good as any animal in the
pack, is obtained, then are just made possible the
richer wider freedoms: the freedom to be worked hard
by one's natural interests and so to taste the deliri-
ousness, the misery, of self-forgetfulness; the freedom
to sing out one's heart, by mad song and dance to be
saved and healed; and, finally, the freedom of the
mind. When by the light of the new realism men see
what blind creatures they may be, they will under-
stand that they must be, not reformed, but informed.
They will seek to know beauty and truth. They will
teach their children to think. .
(The Teacher rises from the table. As he stands
looking out over the hill, he observes signs of a brew-
ing storm. The river is turbulent; her boats are
WHOLE CLOTH
287
W
chafing at anchor, their moving lights flash. The
moon is riding fast from under a heavy black cloud
and casting a ghostly light. The trees in the park
are lashed by the wind. A strong gust blows a chair
from the café veranda into the middle of the path.)
But men do not wait to think! In heavy times they
move by passion and instinct. They always will!
We Bolsheviks will leave to history our reasons.
We do not fear to ack quickly as we must!
ALEXIS
The wind bloweth as it listeth!
1
(The ex-soldier at the coat-rack helps
MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH on with his coat.)
I will walk home with you, Teacher!
(MICHAIL SERGEIVITCH and ALEXIS shake
hands all round, and depart together.)
CARL MARDINBURG
The Herr Professor seems to be a thorough Bol-
shevik. Is he active in the party?
JUDGE SEMYONOV
No. Some of the Nishni Bolsheviks wanted to
make him commissar of education, but the majority
wouldn't listen to it. Could anything show better
the absurdity of the Teacher's theories! And he has
been most eloquently and most cleverly explaining
to us how there would come those from the educated
classes into Bolshevism. Ha! he, himself, will come
knocking on the door in vain!
288
SKETCHES OF SOVIET RUSSIA
BURTSEV, THE WAITER
(As he and the ex-soldier-at-the-coat-rack are put-
ting up the shutters of the café and closing it for the
night.) Perhaps he will! But all the fine spirited
men like him everywhere will not. For the sake of
ten men good and true like him, we Bolsheviks will
spare tens of thousands of you scoffers — you with
your gratified pride, you who will come to any state
but that of humility: who refuse to reckon with the
possibility that you may do badly or think badly!
Michail Sergeivitch and Alexis, and you, Chastleevy,
are humble. You ask nothing from us Bolsheviks.
You may get recognition or you may not; it doesn't
matter! Men like you are answers to the best argu-
ments they may put up against us. God made you
honest hearts; He will make others; and in that we
Bolsheviks will try to give Him some assistance !
(The men at the corner table, the only
guests left in the café, take up their hats
and file down the café steps. Rain is begin-
ning to fall. A flash of lightning for a mo-
ment brightens the whole park and reveals
seven figures, coat collars turned up, hurry-
ing along the path, and passing a stiff monu-
ment to Count Zolodeen, grandfather of
ALEXIS, a brave general in a past war.)
THE END

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