“Is the machine ready?” Russell asked. “It was to be here at ten this morning; it’s 2 p.m. now.”
“The Commissar just told me that the machine unfortunately got out of order,” the guide replied.
Russell smiled. “They are sabotaging our visit,” he said; “we’ll have to drop it.” Then he added sadly: “I feel like a prisoner, every step watched. Already in Petrograd I became aware of this annoying surveillance. It’s rather stupid of them.”
I listened to some of the British delegates discussing the printers’ meeting from which they had just returned. Melnitchansky and other Bolsheviki had addressed the gathering, eulogizing the Soviet regime and the Communist dictatorship. Suddenly a man wearing a long black beard appeared on the platform. Before anyone realized his identity, he launched an attack on the Bolsheviki. He branded them as the corrupters of the Revolution and denounced their tyranny as worse than the Tsar’s. His fiery oratory kept the audience spellbound. Then someone shouted: “Who are you? Your name!”
“I am Chernov, Victor Chernov,” the man replied in bold, defiant voice.
The Bolsheviki on the platform jumped to their feet in rage.
“Hurrah! Long live Chernov, brave Chernov!” the audience shouted, and a wild ovation was tendered the Social Revolutionary leader and former President of the Constituent Assembly.
“Arrest him! Hold the traitor!” came from the Communists. There was a rush to the platform, but Chernov had disappeared.
Some of the Britishers expressed admiration for the daring of the man whom the Cheka has been so assiduously searching for a long time. “It was rather exciting,” someone remarked.
“I shudder to think what will happen to him if he’s caught,” said another.
“Deucedly clever, his escape.”
“The printers will pay for it.”
“I hear the leaders of the Third Soviet bakery are under arrest and the men locked out for demanding more bread.”
“It’s different at home,” a delegate sighed. “But I believe we all agree that the blockade must be raised.”
XX
Other People
—Winter has released its icy grip, and the sun shines brightly. In the parks the benches are filling with people.
Our Buford mascot, the “Baby,” passed me and I hailed him. The color has faded from his face, and he looks yellow and weary.
“No, most of our boys are not working yet,” he said, “and we’re sick of the red tape. They always tell you they need workers, but nobody really wants us. Of course, the Communists of our group have all gotten good berths. Have you heard about Bianki? You remember how he roasted them at that meeting in Beloostrov? How he joined the Party and got a responsible job? The Boston sailor, remember him? Well, I met him walking on the street the other day, all dressed up in a leather suit, with a gun as big as your arm. In the Cheka. His old business. Did you know he was a detective in Boston?”
“I thought he was a sailor.”
“Years back. Later he served in a private sleuth agency.
“Several of our boys worked for a while in the Petrotop,”25 the “Baby” continued. “The Cheka thought there were too many Anarchists there and they kicked us out. Dzerzhinsky26 says the Petrotop is an Anarchist nest; but everyone knows the city would have frozen to death last winter if it wasn’t for Kolobushkin. He is an Anarchist and the whole brains of that place, but they talk of arresting him. An old Schlüsselburg man at that; spent ten years in the dungeons there.”
With primitive unconcern of those about her, an old peasant woman has bared the back of a young girl at her side and is closely scrutinizing her garments. With deliberate movement her thumb and forefinger come together, she withdraws her hand, straightens herself, and releases her captive on the ground. Her neighbor draws nervously aside. “Be careful, good woman,” he chides her, “I have enough of my own.”
“Tell me, my dear,” the old woman inquires, “is it true what people are saying about new wars?”
“Yes.”
“With whom, then?”
“With the Poles.”
“Oh, God be merciful! And why must they always be fighting, Little Uncle?”
The man is silent. The girl lifts her face from the woman’s lap. “It’s chilly, aunt. Are you done now?”
“You’re full of ’em, child.”
On the corner two militiamen are directing a group of street cleaners, oldish men and boys from the concentration camp, and women arrested without documents on trains. Some have high felt boots on, the loose soles flapping noisily in the liquid dung. Others are barefoot. They work apathetically, carrying the filth from the yards to the street and loading it upon carts. The stench is nauseating.
A husky militsioner leisurely saunters up to one of the women. She is young and good-looking, though extremely pale and gaunt.
“What’s your dreaming! Work, you wench,” he says, playfully poking her in the ribs.
“Have a heart,” she pleads. “I’m so weak; just out of the hospital when they nabbed me.”
“Serves you right for riding without a pass.”
“Couldn’t help it, little pigeon,” she says good humoredly. “They told me my husband is in Peter,27 back from the front, and he away from me five years. So I goes to the office; three days in line and then they refuse me a pass. I thought I’d come some way, but they took me off the train, and I’m so weak and sick and they give me no pyock. How am I to find my man now?”
“Get yourself another,” the militiaman laughs. “You won’t see him again.”
“Why won’t I?” she demands angrily.
“Cause he’s likely been sent against the Poles.”
“Oh, my misfortune!” the woman wails. “Is there to be no end to war?”
“You’re a woman and naturally stupid. Can’t expect you to understand such things!”
In the Dom Outchonikh (Home of the Learned) I met literary men, scientists, and intellectuals of various political camps, all looking the mere shadows of humans. They sat about listlessly, some nibbling pieces of black bread.
In a corner
