“I am a little late,” he said; “are all the delegates gone?”
“Bertrand Russell is here yet,” I replied.
“Russell? Who is he?”
I explained.
“Never heard of him,” Karakhan said naively. “But let him come in; there’s room for both of you.”
Delovoi Dvor, the Soviet Hotel assigned to the British guests, has been entirely renovated, and looks clean and fresh. The large dining room is tastefully decorated with crimson banners and mottoes of welcome. Socialist legends of the solidarity of the workers of the world and the triumph of the Revolution through the dictatorship of the proletariat speak from the walls in various tongues. Potted plants lend the spacious room warmth and color.
Covers were set for a large number, including the delegates, the official representatives of the Soviet Government, some members of the Third International, and the invited spokesmen of labor. Russian caviar, soup, white bread, two kinds of meat and a variety of vegetables were on the menu. When fried chicken was served, I saw some of the Britishers exchange wondering glances.
“A jolly good meal for starving Russia,” a delegate at my side remarked to his neighbor in the lull of clattering dishes and laughter.
“Rather. Natty wench,” the other replied with a suggestive wink at the winsome young waitress serving him. “Thought the Bolsheviks had done away with servants.”
Angelica Balabanova, sitting opposite me, looked perturbed.
On May 18th, the day following its arrival in Moscow, the Mission was honored with a great demonstration. It was a splendid military display, all branches of the Red Army participating. No workers marched in the parade.
The continuous round of festivities, special theatrical performances, and visits to factories, are apparently palling upon the delegates. A feeling of dissatisfaction is noticeable among them, a sense of resentment at the apparent surveillance to which they feel themselves subjected. Several have complained of inability to see their callers, the propusk system introduced in the Delovoy Dvor since the arrival of the Mission practically excluding visitors considered persona non grata by the Cheka agent at the clerk’s desk. The delegates are becoming aware of the subtle curtailment of their liberty, conscious of their every step and word being spied upon. They resent the “prison atmosphere,” as a member of the Mission characterized the environment. “We are friendly disposed,” he said to me, “and there is no sense in such tactics.” He was not content with seeing only things officially shown to the Mission, he said. He was anxious to look deeper, and he complained of being compelled to resort to stratagems in order to come in contact with persons whose views he wanted to learn.
“The Russian Revolution is the greatest event in all history,” one of the delegates remarked to me, “petty consideration should have no place in it. A new world is in the making; to minimize the terrific travail of such a birth is worse than folly. The Bolsheviki, in the vanguard of the revolutionary masses, are playing a part in the process whose significance history will not fail to estimate. That they have made mistakes is inevitable, is human; but in spite of errors, they are founding a new civilization. History does not forgive failure: it will immortalize the Bolsheviki because of their success in the face of almost insuperable difficulties. They may justly be proud of their achievements.”
He paused, then continued thoughtfully: “Let the delegates and the world look the situation full in the face. We must learn what revolution actually is. The Russian Revolution is not a matter of mere political recognition; it is a world-changing event. Of course we’ll find wrongs and abuses in it. A period of such storm and strife is unthinkable without them. Evils discovered need only be cured, and well-intentioned criticism is of utmost value. Nor is it a secret that Russia is suffering from starvation, and it is criminal to pretend well-being by grand banquets and dinners. On the contrary, let the delegates behold the terrible effects of the blockade, let them see the frightful disease and mortality resulting from it. No outsider can have even an approximate conception of the full extent of the Allied crime against Russia. The closer the delegates come in contact with the actuality, the more convincing will be their appeal to the British proletariat, and the more effectively will they be able to fight the blockade and Entente intervention.”
XIX
The Spirit of Fanaticism
The Universalist Club on the Tverskaya was in great commotion. Anarchists, Left Social Revolutionists, and Maximalists, with a considerable sprinkling of factory workers and soldiers, filled the lecture room and were excitedly discussing something. As I entered, a tall, well-built young man in a naval blouse separated himself from the crowd and approached me. It was my friend G⸺, the Anarchist sailor.
“What do you say now, Berkman?” he demanded, his strong face expressive of deep indignation. “Do you still think the Bolsheviki revolutionary?”
I learned that forty-five Anarchists in the Butirki prison (Moscow) had been subjected to such unbearable conditions of existence that they at last resorted to the desperate protest of a hunger strike. All of them have been in prison for many months, ever since the Leontievsky affair,21 without charges being preferred against them. They are kept under a most rigid regime, deprived of exercise and visitors, and the food served them is so insufficient and unwholesome that almost all of the prisoners are ill with scurvy. The hunger strikers demand to be tried or released, and their action is considered so justifiable by the other prisoners that the entire Butirki population of over 1,500 have joined the strikers. They have sent a collective protest to the Central Executive of the Communist Party, copies of which have also been forwarded to Lenin, the Moscow Soviet, the
