It is an official assembly of the Communist aristocracy, with Emma Goldman and myself as the only non-Bolsheviki present by special invitation of our mutual friend Angelica. Her motherly, simple personality seems out of place in this gathering. There is deep sadness in her look, a suggestion of disapproval of all the finery and “style” put on for the occasion. Her attention is engaged by the local men at her side, who exert themselves to please the important personage “from the center.” Others are entertaining the foreign delegates, the French-speaking tovarishi having been placed as their neighbors. The wine is good and unstinted, the food delicious. By degrees the atmosphere loses its stiff formality, and a freer spirit descends upon the banquet table.
With coffee begin the speeches. The Russian proletariat, with the Communist Party as its advance guard, is extolled as the banner bearer of social revolution, and the firm conviction of the speedy breakdown of capitalism throughout the world is expressed. But for the cursed Allies starving the country and supporting armed counterrevolution, Russia—it is claimed—would be a workers’ paradise with full liberty and welfare for all. The Mensheviki and the Social Revolutionists, traitors to the Revolution, have been silenced within the country, but abroad these lackeys of capitalism, the Kautskys, Lafargues, et al., still continue their poisonous work, maligning the Commmunists and defaming the Revolution. It is, therefore, doubly to be welcomed that the foreign delegates have come to Russia to acquaint themselves with the real situation, and that they are visiting the Ukraine where they can with their own eyes witness the great work the Communists have accomplished.
I glance at the delegates. They sit unmoved during the long speeches in the strange language, but even Angelica’s masterful rendering into French, enriched by her personality and impassioned oratory, does not seem to impress them. I detect disappointment in their faces. Perhaps they had hoped for a less official, more intimate discussion of the revolutionary problems. They have undoubtedly heard of the numerous peasant uprisings and the punitive expeditions, the frequent strikes, the Makhno movement, and the general opposition to the Communists. But these matters have been carefully avoided by the speakers, who have sought to present a picture of a unified people cooperating in the “proletarian dictatorship” and enthusiastically supporting its “advance guard, the Communist Party.”
Late at night, accompanying the foreign delegates to the railroad station, I have opportunity to learn their sentiments. “The observations we have made while in Russia and the material we have collected,” one of them remarks, “entirely disprove Bolshevik claims. We feel it our duty to tell the whole truth to our people at home.”
Next morning in the Passage, where provisions are purchased to fill out the scanty pyock, I meet little knots of people lamenting and crying. Nothing is being sold: the little bakery and fruit stores were visited by the authorities the previous evening and all their goods requisitioned. Deep gloom hangs over the traders and their customers. With a sense of outrage they point to the large delicatessen stores on the Krestchatik which have not been molested. “They have protection,” someone says indignantly.
“My God, my God!” a woman cries. “It’s we poor people who gave that banquet to the delegates.”
She was introduced to me as Gallina—a young woman in peasant dress, but of graceful figure, and with thoughtful blue eyes. “Gallina?” I wondered. “Yes, Makhno’s wife.”
Surprise and fear for her safety struggled with my admiration of her courage. Her presence in Kiev, in the very lair of the Cheka, means certain death were she to be recognized. Yet she has braved imminent peril and great difficulties in crossing the front. She has business in the city for the povstantsi, she said; she has also brought a message from Nestor: he is very anxious to have Emma Goldman and myself visit him. He is not far from the city, and arrangements could be made to enable us to see him.
Her manner was reserved, almost shy; but she was very positive in her views, and her expression clear and definite. She looked so frail and alone, I was overwhelmingly conscious, of the great danger to which she was exposing herself. She gave me the feeling of a diminutive David rising up to smite Goliath.
“I’m not afraid,” she said simply. “You know, I usually accompany Nestor, and he is always at the head of his men,” she added with quiet pride.
She spoke with much warmth of Makhno’s military ability, his great popularity among the peasantry, and the success of his campaigns against Denikin. But she is not uncritical, nor a blind hero-worshiper. On the contrary, she dwelt much more on the significance and purpose of the rebel peasant movement than on the role of its individual leaders. In the Makhnovstchina she sees the hope of Russia’s liberation from the yoke of White generals, pomeshtchiki (landlords), and Bolshevik commissarship. The one is as hateful to her as the other, both equally subversive of liberty and the Revolution.
“I regard the povstantsi movement,” she said, “as the only true proletarian revolution. Bolshevism is the mastery of the Communist Party, falsely called the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is very far from our conception of revolution. It is the rulership of a caste, of the socialist intelligentsia which has imposed its theories upon the toilers. Their aim is State Communism, with the workers and farmers of the whole country serving as employees of the one powerful government master. Its result is the most abject slavery, suppression, and revolt, as we see on every hand. But the people themselves—the proletarians of city and country—have an entirely different
