In all other respects Lenin is a dogmatic disciple of Karl Marx, and his devotion to the cause of the world revolution is tempered only by the slowly dawning realization that things in the Western world are not exactly as enthusiastic Communists describe. But Lenin’s better understanding of the mind of the Russian peasant gives him an advantage over his fellows in presenting his case to his followers, bringing him a little nearer to actualities; so that his speech, while laboured, abstruse, and free from rhetorical flourish, is straightforward and carries, to his little-thinking Communist audiences, the conviction that he must be right. But the “right” refers not to ethics, which does not enter into Bolshevist philosophy, but only to tactics.
And on the occasion I am describing Lenin spoke mainly of tactics. The vicious Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries had agitated in the factories, and persuaded the workers to down tools and make preposterous demands which were incompatible with the principles of the workers’ and peasants’ government. The chief ground of complaint was the Bolshevist food commissariat. The workers were hungry. Therefore the workers must be fed and the revolt would subside. A heroic effort must be made to obtain food for the factories. So the government had decided to stop the passenger traffic on every railroad in Russia for the space of three weeks, in order that all available locomotives and every available car and truck might be devoted to the sole purpose of transporting to the northern capital supplies of forcibly seized food.
Of the results of these so-called “freight weeks” little need be said beyond the fact that the experiment was never repeated because of its complete failure to solve the problem. It is true that the government supplies did increase very slightly, but the population was in the end much hungrier than before, for the very simple reason that the stoppage of the passenger traffic materially interfered with the comings and goings of “sackmen,” upon whose illicit and risky operations the public relied for at least half, and the better half, of their food supplies!
The workers’ revolt subsided, not through the better feeding of the men, but because they were effectually reduced to a state of abject despair by the ruthless seizure of their leaders and the cruel reprisals against their wives and families, and because this moment was chosen by the authorities to reduce their numbers by removing a large draft of workers to other industrial centres in the interior. Still, on the occasion of Lenin’s visit, the workers did make a final attempt to assert themselves. A delegation from the largest factories was sent to present their demands, as set forth in resolutions, to the president in person at the Narodny Dom. But the delegation was refused admission. They returned, foiled, to their factories and observed to their comrades that “it was easier to approach the Tsar Nicholas than it was to gain access to the president of the ‘Soviet Republic.’ ” What, I wondered, would the Third International have thought of such words?
After the experiment of the “freight weeks,” the next expedient resorted to when the selfsame demands were again presented was a strangely inconsistent but an inevitable one. It was a partial concession of freedom to “sackmen.” After long and loud clamouring, a certain percentage of workers were granted the right to journey freely to the provinces and bring back two poods (72 lb.) of bread each. Thus they got the nickname of two-pooders and the practice was called “two-pooding.” As everyone strove to avail himself of the right the railroads naturally became terribly congested, but the measure nevertheless had the desired effect. Not only was there almost immediately more bread, but the price fell rapidly. The workers travelled to the grain-growing districts, came to terms with the villagers, who willingly gave up to them what they hid from Bolshevist requisitioners, and journeyed back, jealously clutching their sacks of bread. I happened to be travelling to Moscow at this time, and the sight of swarms of wretched “two-pooders,” filling all the cars and clambering on to the roofs and buffers, was a pitiful one indeed. But just at the moment when it seemed that a genuine solution of the food problem in the capitals had been found, “two-pooding” was summarily cut short by government edict on the ground that the congestion of the railways rendered impossible the transport of the government’s supplies.
For over a year more the Bolsheviks strove their utmost to stave off the inevitable day when it would no longer be possible to forbid the right of free trading. As the feud between themselves and the peasants deepened, and the difficulty of provisioning increased, the government sought by one palliative after another to counteract the effects of their own food policy. But recently, in the spring of 1921, the fateful step was taken. In spite of considerable opposition from
