On that occasion, when I called at Zinoviev’s rooms in the Astoria, a comely young woman answered the bell. “Are you Mme. Zinoviev?” I inquired, unconscious of the fact act that I was committing an unpardonable breach of Bolshevik etiquette; in fact, a double breach in employing the bourgeois expression “Madame” and in failing to address her by her own name, which I could not remember at the moment.
“I’ll call tovarish Lilina,” she said censoriously, and the next instant I faced an irate, middle-aged woman with the face of a disgruntled spinster. She had evidently heard my question, and her reception was ungracious.
“Tovarish Zinoviev does not receive here. Go to the Smolny,” she said, without permitting me to enter.
“I should like to use the direct wire to the Foreign Office, on business with Chicherin,” I explained.
“You can’t do it, and I don’t know who you are,” she replied curtly, closing the door.
On the present occasion Lilina was more gracious. We spoke of the conditions in the reformatories and she admitted that certain evils existed there, but protested that the published report was grossly exaggerated. We discussed modern methods of education and I explained the system followed by the Ferrer School in New York. She was inclined to agree in theory, “but we must fit our youth,” she remarked, “to continue the work of our Revolution.” “Surely,” I assented, “but is that to be done by the conventional methods which stultify and cripple the young mind by imposing upon it predigested views and dogmas?” I emphasized that the true aim of education is to aid the harmonious development of the child’s physical and mental qualities, to encourage independence of thought and inspire creative effort.
Lilina thought my views too Anarchistic.
XVI
Rest Homes for Workers
For months Zorin had been thinking of a project to afford the toilers of Petrograd an opportunity to recuperate during the summer. The workers are systematically undernourished and exhausted—a few weeks’ rest and an improved pyock would give them new strength, and would at the same time be a demonstration of the interest the Communist Party is taking in their welfare.
After protracted discussion Zorin’s idea was approved by the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, and he received authority to put his cherished dream in operation. The former villas of the Russian nobility in the environs of the city were to be turned into proletarian “rest homes” and rebuilt to hold fifty thousand workers, who will spend two weeks there in groups of five thousand.
Zorin enlisted my cooperation, and I have enthusiastically accepted. We have paid several visits to Kameny Island, where the most beautiful villas and palaces are situated, and I have worked out a detailed plan for transforming them into homes for small families of workers, providing also for dining-rooms, libraries, and recreation places. Zorin has appointed me general manager and requested that the work be rushed “in hurry-up American style,” as he expressed himself, in order that everything be completed by the 1st of May, which is to be celebrated on a large scale as a revolutionary holiday.
The island has been neglected since the Revolution; most of the villas need thorough renovating and even the roads are badly out of repair. We mean to create an artistic summer resort, with modern improvements and comforts for the benefit of the proletarians. Surely no government has ever undertaken such work before.
Architects and civil engineers are on hand, but we find great difficulty in procuring building material and efficient labor. The Petrograd warehouses are stocked with the things needed, but it is almost impossible to learn just what is on hand and where it is to be found. When private property was nationalized, the stores and warehouses were sealed, and no one apparently knows what they contain. Our architects, engineers, and workers fly about the city, wasting their time in a vain effort to secure the required material. For days they crowd the various bureaus to procure “authorized orders” for a few spades or lengths of water pipe, and when these are finally secured, we are balked by the general ignorance as to where the object sought can be found. In this situation the only economic and efficient mode of procedure would be to have our own committee overhaul the warehouses and take an inventory of the stock on hand. But my proposition to this effect has impugned upon the thick wall of the prevailing bureaucratic system. The Commissars of the various departments—all Communists—are inclined to take offense at such apparent ignoring of their authority: established modes of procedure have to be followed. Moreover, the stores and warehouses had been sealed by the Cheka; without its permission in each particular case the locks cannot be touched. The Cheka frowns upon my suggestion, coming from a nonmember of the Party, at that. Nitcheve ne podelayesh, Zorin says.
I find the new Soviet bureaucracy, its inefficiency and indifference, the greatest handicap in the work. It involves a continuous struggle against official red tape, precedence, and petty jealousy. Time is passing, and almost no progress is being made. The situation is disheartening.
I consider it vital that the men employed in the work of preparing a recreation place for the proletariat should themselves feel an interest in the matter, for only thus can effective cooperation be secured and results achieved. I have, therefore, suggested the formation of a committee to visit the shops and factories, to explain our plan to the workers, and enlist their interest and voluntary aid. I pointed out also the moral value of such a proceeding, and offered to organize the committee from the Buford deportees, most of whom are still looking for employment. Zorin favors the idea, but objections
