At midnight (April 10) I attended mass at St. Isaac’s Cathedral. The huge edifice was cold and vault-like; the deep bass of the priest sounded like a requiem of his faith. The flock, mostly men and women of the former middle class, looked depressed, as if by thoughts of a glory past forever.
After services the worshipers formed in procession on the street, thrice circling the Cathedral. They walked slowly, in silence, no joy in the traditional greeting, “Christ is risen!” “Indeed he is risen,” came spiritlessly in reply. Scattered shots were heard in the distance. Two women embraced on the steps of the church and sobbed aloud.
In the Kazan Cathedral the attendance was predominately proletarian. I felt the same suppressed atmosphere, as if some vague fear possessed the people. The procession in the dark streets was mournful, funereal. The little wax candles resembled will-o’-the-wisps blown about by the breeze, their unsteady flicker faintly suggesting the icons and banners fluttering above the heads of the worshipers. Faith is still alive, but the power of the Church is broken.
Bieland arrived from America bringing the first direct news I have had from the States. Reaction is rampant, he relates; 100% Americanism is celebrating its bloody victory. The wartime laws passed as measures of temporary necessity remain in operation and are applied with greater severity than before. The prisons are filled with politicals; most of the active I.W.W. are in jail, and draft evaders and conscientious objectors are still being arrested. Radicalism is outlawed; independent opinion a crime. The militaristic humanitarianism of Wilson has become a war against progress. The heritage of “war against war” is more deadly than the slaughter itself.
Bill Haywood, released on bail, has again been arrested. Rose Pastor Stokes was extradited to Illinois for a speech that displeased some officials; Larkin is about to be put on trial, and Gitlow was condemned to fifteen years.
A similar spirit of reaction is manifest all through Europe. White Terror is in the saddle. Jack Reed has been arrested in Finland en route to America.
“Only here we can breathe freely,” Bieland remarked fervently. I did not gainsay it. Notwithstanding all the faults and shortcomings of the Bolsheviki, I feel that Russia is still the hearth of the Revolution. It is the torch whose light is visible throughout the world, and proletarian hearts in every land are warmed by its glow.
—A gloomy day; cloudy, with slight rain—very oppressive after the springlike weather we have been having. It remains light now till 10 p.m.—the clocks had been turned back two hours and recently again another hour.
Liza Zorin was taken to the hospital today, suffering much pain: her child is expected in a few days. Liza refused a private room, even objecting to being treated by a doctor instead of a midwife, like any other proletarian mother. Of delicate physique and suffering from a weak heart, she is strong in spirit: a true Communist who refuses to accept special privileges. She has nothing for her baby, but “other mothers have no more, and why should I?” she says.
Moscow has refused Bill Shatov permission to leave Siberia to visit his sick wife. Though Commissar of Railroads in the Far Eastern Republic, Bill is virtually in exile.
Disclosures in the Pravda about the Petrograd reformatories for children have stirred the city. A Committee of the Communist Youth had been investigating the institutions, and now its report has uncovered a most deplorable state of affairs. The “reformatories” are charged with being veritable prisons in which the young inmates are regarded as criminals. Defective children are subject to severe punishment, and boyish pranks are treated as serious offenses. The general management has been found permeated with bureaucracy and corruption. A favorite mode of punishment is to deprive the children of their meals, and the food thus saved is appropriated by the managers of the institution. By corrupt methods the Commissars procure supplies on padded lists for purposes of speculation. Nepotism prevails, the number of employees often equaling that of the children.
I had been considering for some time taking up educational work, and I used the opportunity to discuss the matter with Zorin. He was greatly displeased at the revelations and inclined to consider the school situation exaggerated by the youthful investigators. He insisted that existing evils are due chiefly to the lack of Bolshevik teachers. Only Communists can be trusted in responsible positions, he asserted. Where nonpartisans hold high office, it has become necessary to put a politkom (political commissar) at the head of the institution to guard against sabotage. This system, though uneconomical, is imperative in view of the scarcity of Communist organizers and workers. Evils and abuses in Soviet institutions are almost wholly due to this situation, Zorin claims. The average man is a Philistine, whose sole thought is to exploit every opportunity to secure greater advantages for himself, his family, and friends. It is bourgeois human nature, nitcheve ne podelayesh. It is true, of course, that most Soviet employees steal and speculate. But the Government is fighting these evils with merciless hand. Such men are often shot as guilty of crime against the Revolution. But the hunger is so great that even communists, those not sufficiently grounded in the ideas and discipline of the Party, often fall victims to temptation. Such receive even less shrift than others. To them the Government is ruthless and justly so: Communists are the advance guard of the Revolution—they should show an example of devotion, honesty, and self-sacrifice.
We discussed means of eradicating the evils in the children’s institutions, and Zorin welcomed my practical suggestions based on educational experience in America. I offered to devote myself to the work, but I felt compelled to make the condition that I be relieved of politkoms and be given opportunity to carry out my ideas in the treatment of backward and so-called morally defective children. Zorin
