I stated my mission. The politicals have been kept in prison for nine months, some of them even for two years, without trial or charges, and now they demand some action in their cases.
“They are within their rights,” Preobrazhensky replied, “but if your friends think they can influence us by a hunger strike, they are mistaken. They may starve as long as they want.” He paused and a hard expression came into his eyes. “If they die,” he added thoughtfully, “perhaps it would be best.”
“I have come to you as a comrade,” I said indignantly, “but if you take such an attitude—”
“I have no time to discuss it,” he interrupted. “The matter will be considered this evening by the Central Committee.”
Later in the day I learned that ten of the imprisoned Anarchists, including Gordin—the founder of the Universalist group—were released by order of the Cheka, in the hope of breaking the hunger strike. This development was independent of any action of the Central Committee. It also became known that some of the Butirki politicals were condemned to five years’ prison, without having received hearing or trial, while others were sentenced to concentration camps “till the end of civil war.”
I was in a room in the Hotel National translating for the British Labor Mission various resolutions, articles, and Losovsky’s brochure on the history of Russian unionism, when I received a message from Radek asking me to call on a matter of great urgency. Wondering, I entered the automobile he had sent for me and was driven at a fast clip through the city till we reached the former quarters of the German Legation, now occupied by the Third International. The elegant reception hall was filled with callers and foreign delegates, some of whom were curiously examining the bullet marks in the mosaic floor and walls—reminders of the violent death Mirbach had met in this room at the hands of Left Social Revolutionists opposed to the Brest peace.
I was conscious of the disapproving looks directed at me when, out of my turn, I was requested to follow the attendant to the private office of the Secretary of the Communist International. Radek received me very cordially, inquired about my health, and thanked me for so promptly responding to his call. Then, handing me a thick manuscript, he said:
“Ilyitch24 has just finished this work and he is anxious to have you render it into English for the British Mission. You will do us a great service.”
It was the manuscript of The Infantile Sickness of Leftism. I had already heard about the forthcoming work and knew it to be an attack on the Left revolutionary tendencies critical of Leninism. I turned over some pages, with their profusely underscored lines corrected in Lenin’s small but legible handwriting. “Petty bourgeois ideology of Anarchism,” I read; “the infantile stupidity of Leftism,” “the ultrarevolutionists suffocating in the fervor of their childish enthusiasm.” The pale faces of the Butirki hunger strikers rose before me. I saw their burning eyes peering accusingly at me through the iron bars. “Have you forsaken us?” I heard them whisper.
“We are in a great hurry about this translation.” Radek was saying, and I felt impatience in his voice. “We want it done within three days.”
“It will require at least a week,” I replied. “Besides, I have other work on hand, already promised.”
“I know, Losovsky’s,” he remarked with a disparaging tilt of the head; “that’s all right. Lenin’s takes precedence. You can drop everything else, on my responsibility.”
“I will undertake it if I may add a preface.”
“This is no joking matter, Berkman.” Radek was frankly displeased.
“I speak seriously. This pamphlet misrepresents and besmirches all my ideals. I cannot agree to translate it without adding a few words in defense.”
“Otherwise you decline?”
“I do.”
Radek’s manner lacked warmth as I took my departure.
A subtle change has taken place in the attitude of the Communists toward me. I notice coldness in their greeting, a touch of resentment even. My refusal to translate Lenin’s brochure has become known, and I am made to feel guilty of lèse majesté.
I have been accompanying the British Mission on its visits to mills, theaters, and schools, and everywhere I was aware of the scrutinizing gaze of the Chekamen attending the delegates as guides and interpreters. In the Delovoi Dvor the clerk has suddenly begun to demand my propusk and to ask my “business,” though he knows that I live there and am helping the delegates with translations.
I have decided to give up my room in the Dvor and to accept the hospitality of a friend in the National. It is contrary to the rules of the Soviet Houses, no visitor being permitted to remain after midnight. At that hour the day’s propuski, with the names of the callers and the persons visited, are turned over to the Cheka. Not being an official guest of the Hotel, I am not entitled to meals and am compelled to commit another breach of Communist order by resorting to the markets, officially abolished but practically in operation. The situation is growing intolerable, and I am preparing to leave for Petrograd.
“You have become persona non grata,” Augustine Souchy, the delegate of the German Syndicalist Union, remarked as we were sitting in the Delovoi translating the resolutions submitted by Losovsky to the labor representatives of Sweden, Norway, and Germany.
“In both camps,” I laughed. “My friends of the Left call me a Bolshevik, while the Communists look askance at me.”
“Many of us are in the same boat,” Souchy replied.
Bertrand Russell passed by and called me aside. “I think nothing will come of our proposed visit to Peter Kropotkin,” he said. “For five days they have been promising a machine. It’s always ‘in a moment it will be here,’ and the days pass in vain waiting.”
A curly-headed little Communist, one of the English-speaking guides assigned to the Mission,
