I had hitherto evaded military service as long as possible, fearing that it might impede the conduct of my intelligence work. The contrary proved to be the case, and for many reasons I regretted I had not enlisted earlier. Apart from greater freedom of movement and preference over civilians when applying for lodging, amusement, or travelling tickets, the Red soldier received rations greatly superior both in quantity and quality to those of the civilian population. Previous to this time I had received only half a pound of bread daily and had had to take my scanty dinner at a filthy communal eating-house, but as a Red soldier I received, besides a dinner and other odds and ends not worth mentioning, a pound and sometimes a pound and a half of tolerably good black bread, which alone was sufficient, accustomed as I am to a scanty diet, to subsist on with relative comfort.
The commander was a good fellow, nervous and sadly out of place in “the party,” but he soon got used to it and enjoyed its many privileges. He stood me in good stead. Repeatedly detailing me off to any place I wished to go to, on missions he knew were lengthy (such as the purchase of automobile tyres, which were unobtainable, or literature of various kinds), I was able to devote my main attention as before to the political and economic situation.
As a Red soldier, I was sent to Moscow and there consulted with the National Centre, the most promising of the political organizations whose object was to work out a programme acceptable to the Russian people as a whole. On account of its democratic character this organization was pursued by the Bolshevist Government with peculiar zeal, and was finally unearthed, and its members, of whom many were Socialists, shot.3 From Moscow also I received regularly copies of the summaries on the general situation that were submitted to the Soviet of People’s Commissars. The questions I was instructed in messages from abroad to investigate covered the entire field of soviet administration, but I do not propose to deal with that huge subject here. It is the present and the inscrutable future that fascinate me rather than the past. I will speak only of the peasantry, the army, and “the party.” For it is on the ability or inability of the Communists to control the army that the stability of the Bolshevist regime in a considerable measure depends, while the future lies in the lap of that vast inarticulate mass of simple peasant toilers, so justly termed the Russian Sphinx.
XI
The Red Army
The day I joined my regiment I donned my Red army uniform, consisting of a khaki shirt, yellow breeches, putties, a pair of good boots which I bought from another soldier (the army at that time was not issuing boots), and a grey army overcoat. On my cap I wore the Red army badge—a red star with a mallet and plough imprinted on it.
This could not be said to be the regular Red army uniform, though it was as regular as any. Except for picked troops, smartly apparelled in the best the army stores could provide, the rank and file of recruits wore just anything, and often had only bast slippers in place of boots. There is bitter irony and a world of significance in the fact that in 1920, when I observed the Red army again from the Polish front, I found many of the thousands who deserted to the Poles wearing British uniforms which had been supplied, together with so much war material, to Denikin.
“Tovarishtch Kommandir,” I would say on presenting myself before my commander, “pozvoltye dolozhitj. … Comrade Commander, allow me, to report that the allotted task is executed.”
“Good, Comrade So-and-so,” would be the reply, “I will hear your report immediately,” or: “Hold yourself in readiness at such and such an hour tomorrow.”
The terminology of the former army, like the nomenclature of many streets in the capitals, has been altered and the word “commander” substituted for “officer.” When we were alone I did not say “Comrade Commander” (unless facetiously) but called him “Vasili Petrovitch,” and he addressed me also by Christian name and patronymic.
“Vasili Petrovitch,” I said one day, “what made you join the Red army?”
“You think we have any option?” he retorted. “If an officer doesn’t want to be shot he either obeys the mobilization order or flees from the country. And only those can afford to take flight who have no family to leave behind.” He drew a bulky pocketbook from his pocket, and fumbling among the mass of dirty and ragged documents, unfolded a paper and placed it before me. “That is a copy of a paper I was made to fill in and sign before being given a Red commission. We all have to sign it, and if you were discovered here I should have signed away my wife’s life as well as my own.”
The paper was a typewritten blank, on which first the name, rank in the old army, present rank, regiment, abode, etc., had to be filled in in detail. Then followed a space in which the newly mobilized officer gave an exhaustive list of his relatives, with their ages, addresses, and occupations; while at the bottom, followed by a space for signature, were the following words:
I hereby declare that I am aware that in the event of my disloyalty to the Soviet Government, my relatives will be arrested and deported.
