“Seeing you are not a Communist I can tell you how we suffer,” he continued. “The peasants are worse off now than before; they live in constant dread lest a Communist come and take away their last loaf. Chekists of the Ossobiy Otdel enter a house and order the women to put everything on the table, and then they ride away with it. They don’t care if the children go hungry. Who would plant under such masters? But the peasant has learned something; he must bury in the ground what he wants to save from the robbers.”
Several peasants entered. They looked at Moishe in silence, and he nodded reassuringly. From scraps of their conversation I learned that they supplied the Jew with products, he acting as middleman in the trade. One must be careful not to deal indiscriminately with strangers, Moishe remarked; some of those he saw in the market looked suspicious. But he would supply me with provisions, and he named prices much below those of the Moscow market: herrings, which cost 1,000 roubles in the capital, at 400; a pound of beans or peas at 120; flour, half wheat, at 250; eggs at 60 roubles apiece.
The peasants agreed with Moishe that “the times are worse than under the Tsar.” The Communists are just robbers, and there is no justice to be had nowadays. They fear the Commissars more than the old tchinovniki. They resented my question whether they would prefer the monarchy. No, they do not want the pomeshtchiki (landlords) again, nor the Tsar, but they don’t want the Bolsheviki, either.
“We were treated like cattle before,” said a flaxen-haired peasant with blue eyes, “and it was in the name of the Little Father. Now they speak to us in the name of the Party and the proletariat, but we are treated like cattle, the same as before.”
“Lenin is a good man,” one of the peasants put in.
“We say nothing against him,” another remarked, “but his Commissars, they are hard and cruel.”
“God is high above and Ilytch16 far away,” the blue-eyed peasant said, paraphrasing a popular old saying.
“But the Bolsheviki gave you the land,” I remonstrated.
He slowly scratched his head and a sly smile came into his eyes. “No, golubtchik,” he replied, “the land we took ourselves. Isn’t it so, little brothers?” he turned to the others.
“He speaks the truth,” they assented.
“Will it go on like this much longer?” they asked, as I was departing. “Maybe something will change?”
Returning to the station I met the members of our train crew straggling up the hill, weighted down with sacks of provisions. The young student of our medical staff carried a squealing hog. “How happy little old mother will be,” he said; “this porker will keep the family alive for a long time.”
“If they hide it well enough,” someone suggested.
A soldier drove by, and we asked for a ride to the station. Without answering he passed on. Presently another cart overtook us. We repeated our request. “Why not?” the young peasant exclaimed cheerfully, “jump in, all of you.” He was jolly and talkative, his “soul ajar,” as the student characterized him, and his conversation was entertaining. He liked the Bolsheviki, he said, but he had no use for the Communists. The Bolsheviki were good men, friends of the people: they had demanded the land for the farmer and all the power for the Soviets. But the Communists are bad: they rob and flog the peasants; they have put their own kind into the Soviets, and a non-Communist has no say there. The kombed is full of idle good-for-nothings; they are the bosses of the village, and the peasant who refuses to bow down before them is “in hard luck.” He had been on the Denikin front and there it was the same thing: the Communists and Commissars had everything their own way and lorded it over the drafted men. It was different when the soldiers could speak their minds and decide everything in their Company Committee: that was liberty and everyone felt himself a part of the Revolution. But now it is all changed. One is afraid to speak honestly—there’s always a Communist about, and you are in danger of being denounced. That’s why he deserted; yes, deserted twice. He had heard that everything had been taken from his folks on the farm, and he decided to come home to see if it was true. Well, it was true; worse than what he had been told. Even his youngest brother, just past sixteen, had been drafted into the Army. No one remained at home but his mother and father, too old to work their piece of land without help, and all the cattle were gone. The Commissars had left almost no horses in his village and only one cow to each family of five persons, and if a peasant had only two little children his last cow was taken away. He decided to stay and help his folks—it was spring, and planting had to be done. But he had a narrow escape. One day the whole village was surrounded by the Commissar and his men. He ran out of his hut and made for the woods. Bad luck, he was still in his soldier uniform, and they shot at him from all sides. He succeeded in reaching the nearest bushes, but he was exhausted and fell, rolling down the hill into a hollow. His pursuers must have thought him dead. Late in the night he stole back to the village, but
