“Get out of here, you devils,” the man shouted, “or I’ll fill you full of lead.”
“Easy, tovarish,” Karus warned him, “and be a bit more polite.”
“Get out!” the Commissar roared. “You don’t know to whom you’re talking. We’re the boyevaia18 Cheka.”
“There may be others such,” Karus replied significantly. “We can’t find our car and we’d like to pass the night here.”
“But you can’t remain here,” the man remonstrated in a quieter tone, “we may be called for action any moment.”
“My tovarish is from the Petro-Soviet,” Karus declared, indicating me; “we can’t remain in the open.”
“Well, stay then.” The Commissar yawned and stretched himself on the bench.
I called Ethel into the car. She looked cold and tired, and hardly able to stand. In the dark I felt for a vacant place, but everywhere my hands touched human bodies. The men snored to various tunes, some cursing in their sleep.
I heard Karus climb up to the second tier and a woman’s angry voice, “Quit your pushing, devil.” “Make room, you heifer,” came from Karus, “fine fighting men these, with a car full of whores.”
In a corner we found a bench piled with rifles, dishes, and old clothes. No sooner did we sit down than we became conscious of vermin crawling upon us. “I hope we don’t catch typhus,” Ethel whispered fearfully. In the distance guns were being fired; now and then shots sounded nearby. Outside on the tracks two men were quarreling.
“You leave my woman be,” a drunken voice threatened.
“Your woman!” the other sneered. “Why not mine?”
“I’ll show you, you bastard son of your mother’s lovers!” There came a dull thud, and all was quiet again.
Ethel shuddered. “If it were only daylight,” she murmured. Her head fell heavily on my shoulder and she slept.
—Arrived in Petrograd today. To my consternation I found the returned war prisoners still at the railroad station. No steps had been taken to quarter and feed them because they “were not expected” and no “orders” had yet come from Moscow.
XV
Back in Petrograd
—I found Zinoviev very ill; his condition—it is rumored—is due to mistreatment at the hands of workers. The story goes that several factories had passed resolutions criticizing the administration for corruption and inefficiency, and that subsequently some of the men were arrested. When Zinoviev later visited the mill, he was assaulted.
Nothing of such matters is to be found in the Pravda or Krasnaya Gazetta, the official dailies. They contain little news of any kind, being almost exclusively devoted to agitation and to appeals to the people to stand by the Government and the Communist Party in saving the country from counterrevolution and economic ruin.
Bill Shatov is expected back from Siberia. His wife Nunya is in the hospital, at the point of death, it is feared, and Bill has been wired for. With surprise I have learned that Shatov failed to reply to our radios or to meet the Buford group at the border because he was forbidden to do so by “higher authorities.” It also explains why Zorin pretended that Shatov had gone East when as a matter of fact he was still in Petrograd.
It appears that Bill, in spite of his great services to the Revolution, had fallen into disfavor; grave charges were made against him, and he was even in danger of his life. Lenin saved Shatov because he was a good organizer and “could still be useful.” Bill was virtually exiled to Siberia, and it is believed that he will not be permitted to return to Petrograd to see his dying wife.
Most of the Buford deportees are still idle. The data I prepared for Zorin, and the plans I worked out for the employment of the men, have not been acted upon. The former enthusiasm of the boys has turned to discouragement. “Bolshevik red tape,” S⸺ remarked to me, “is wasting our time and energies. I’ve worn out my last pair of shoes running about trying to get work. They discriminate against the non-Communists. The Bolsheviki claim they need good workers, but if you are not a Communist they don’t want you. We’ve been called counterrevolutionists, and the Chief of the Cheka has even threatened to send us to prison.”
At the home of my friend M⸺, on the Vassilevsky Ostrov, I met several men and women, sitting in their overcoats around the bourzhuika, the little iron stove which they kept feeding with old newspapers and magazines.
“Doesn’t it seem incredible,” the host was saying, “that Petrograd, with great forests in its vicinity, should freeze for lack of fuel? We’d get the wood if they’d only let us. You remember those barges on the Neva? They had been neglected, and they were falling to pieces. The workers of the N⸺ factory wanted to take them apart and use the lumber for fuel. But the Government refused. ‘We’ll attend to it ourselves,’ they said. Well, what happened? Nothing was done, of course, and the tide didn’t wait for official routine. The barges were swept out to sea and lost.”
“The Communists won’t stand for independent initiative,” one of the women remarked; “it’s dangerous for their regime.”
“No, my friends, it’s no use deluding yourselves,” a tall, bearded man retorted. “Russia is not ripe for Communism. Social revolution is possible only in a country with the highest industrial development. It was the greatest crime of the Bolsheviki that they forcibly suspended the Constituent Assembly. They usurped governmental power, but the whole country is against them. What can you expect under such circumstances? They have to resort to terror to force the people to do their bidding, and of course everything goes to ruin.”
“That’s a good Marxist talking,” a Left Socialist Revolutionist rejoined, good humoredly; “but you
