Had not Lenin himself frequently asserted that he and his followers were ultimately Anarchists—that political power was to them but a temporary means of accomplishing the Revolution? The State was gradually to die off, to disappear, as Engels had taught, because its functions would become unnecessary and obsolete.
I therefore accepted the Bolsheviki as the sincere and intrepid vanguard of man’s social emancipation. To work with them, to help in the fight against the enemies of the Revolution, to aid in securing its fruits to the people was my fervent aspiration.
In that state of mind I came to Soviet Russia. As I had so passionately avowed at our first meeting of welcome on the Russian frontier, I came prepared to ignore all theoretic differences of opinion. I came to work, not to discuss. To learn, not to teach. To learn and to help.
I did learn, and I tried to help. I learned day by day, through the long weeks and months, in various parts of the country. But what I saw and learned was in such crying contrast with my hopes and expectations as to shake the very foundation of my faith in the Bolsheviki. Not that I expected to find Russia a proletarian Eldorado. By no means. I knew how great the travail of a revolutionary period, how stupendous the difficulties to be overcome. Russia was besieged on numerous fronts; there was counterrevolution within and without; the blockade was starving the country and denying even medical aid to sick women and children. The people were exhausted by long war and civil strife; industry was disorganised, the railroads broken down. I fully realised the dire situation, with Russia shedding her last blood on the altar of the Revolution, while the world at large stood by a supine witness and the Allied Powers aided death and destruction.
I saw the desperate heroism of the people and the almost superhuman efforts of the Bolsheviki. Closely associated with them, on terms of personal friendship with the leading Communists, I shared their interests and hopes, helped in their work, and was inspired by their selfless devotion and entire absorption in the service of the Revolution. Lack of sympathy on the part of other revolutionary elements filled me with grief, even anger. I was impatient of criticism of the Bolsheviki at a time when they were beset by powerful enemies. Refusal of support I resented, condemned as criminal, and I exerted my utmost efforts to bring about better understanding and cooperation between the opposing revolutionary factions.
My closeness to the Bolsheviki, my frank partiality in their favor aggravated my friends and alienated my nearest comrades. But my faith in the Communists and their integrity would not be influenced. It was proof even against the evidence of my own senses and judgment, of my impressions and experience.
Life, reality continuously challenged my faith. I saw inequality and injustice on every hand, humanity trampled in the dust, alleged exigency made the cloak of treachery, deceit, and oppression. I saw the ruling Party suppress the vital impulses of the Revolution, discourage popular initiative and self-reliance so essential to its growth. Yet I clung to my faith. Tenaciously I nursed the hope that back of the wrong principles and false tactics, back of the Government bureaucracy and Party autocracy there smoldered the will to idealism that would sweep away the black clouds of despotism as soon as the Soviet Government would be safe from Allied interference and counterrevolution. That spark of idealism would excuse to me all the mistakes and errors, the monstrous incompetency, the incredible corruption, even the crimes committed in the name of the Revolution.
For eighteen months, months of anguish and heartrending experience, I clung to that hope. And day by day the conviction kept growing that Bolshevism was proving fatal to the best interests of the Revolution; that political power had become the sole aim of the dominant Party; that the State with its barrack Communism was enslaving and destructive. I saw the Bolsheviki steadily gain momentum on the inclined plane of tyranny; the Party dictatorship become the irresponsible absolutism of a few overlords; the apostles of liberty turn executioners of the people.
Every day the damning evidence was accumulating. I saw the Bolsheviki reflect the Revolution as a monstrous grotesque; I saw tragic revolutionary necessity institutionalised into irresponsible terror, the blood of thousands shed without reason or measure. I saw the class struggle, long terminated, become a war of vengeance and extermination. I saw the ideals of yesterday betrayed, the meaning of the Revolution perverted, its essence caricatured into reaction. I saw the workers subdued, the whole country silenced by the Party dictatorship and its organised brutality. I saw entire villages laid waste by Bolshevik artillery. I saw the prisons filled—not with counterrevolutionists, but with workers and peasants, with proletarian intellectuals, with starving women and children. I saw the revolutionary elements persecuted, the spirit of October crucified on the Golgotha of the omnipotent Communist State.
Still I would not concede the appalling truth. Still the hope persisted that the Bolsheviki, though absolutely wrong in principle and practice, yet grimly held on to some shreds of the revolutionary banner. “Allied interference,” “the blockade and civil war,” “the necessity of the transitory stage”—thus I sought to placate my outraged conscience. When the critical period will be past, the hand of despotism and terror would be lifted, and my sorely tried faith justified.
At last the fronts were liquidated, civil war ended, and the country at peace. But Communist policies did not change. On the contrary: more fanatical became repression, red terror
