Whenever it is possible, that is, whenever no serious opposition to a Communist candidate is expected, the Bolsheviks allow an election to take its normal course, except that the secret ballot has been almost universally abolished. Before they rose to power the secret ballot was a cardinal principle of the Bolshevist programme. The argument, so typical of Bolshevist reasoning, now put forward in justification of its abolition is that secret voting would be inconsistent in a proletarian republic that has become “free.”
The number of Communists who are elected without opposition is very considerable, and, strangely enough, it is upon the bourgeoisie, engaged in the multifarious clerical tasks of the bureaucratic administration, that the authorities are able to rely for the least opposition. Employees of the government offices mostly miss the elections if they can, and if they cannot, acquiesce passively in the appointment of Communists, knowing that the proposal of opponents will lead, at the least, to extreme unpleasantness. A partial explanation of this docility and the general inability of the Russian people to assert themselves is to be found in sheer political inexperience. The halcyon days of March, 1917, before the Bolsheviks returned, was the only period in which they have known liberty, and at the elections of that time there was little or no controversy. In any case, political experience is not to be acquired in the short space of a few weeks.
I will cite but one instance of an election in a thoroughly bourgeois institution. The return by the Marinsky Opera of a Communist delegate to the Petrograd Soviet was given prominence in the Bolshevist Press, and as I had at one time been connected with this theatre I was interested to elucidate the circumstances. On the election day, of all the singers, orchestra, chorus, and the large staff of scene-shifters, mechanics, attendants, caretakers, etc., numbering several hundred people, not half-a-dozen appeared. So the election was postponed until another day, when the Communist “cell,” appointed to control the election, brought in a complete outsider, whom they “elected” as delegate from the theatre. The staff were completely indifferent and unaware, until afterwards, that any election had taken place!
Not to the passive bourgeoisie, but to the active workers, do the Bolsheviks look for opposition in the cities. It is to counteract and forcibly prevent non-Bolshevist propaganda in the workshops that their chief energies are devoted. The elections I am describing were noteworthy because they followed immediately upon an outburst of strikes, particularly affecting the railwaymen and streetcar workers. At one of the tramway parks bombs had been thrown, killing one worker and wounding three Communists.
Only one meeting was permitted at each factory or other institution and the printed instructions stated that it must be controlled by Communists, who were to put forward their candidates first. Everywhere where there had been disturbances guards were introduced to maintain order during the meeting, and spies of the Extraordinary Commission were sent to note who, if anyone, raised his hand against the Communist candidates. At the Obukhov works the workers were told straight out that anyone who voted against the Communists would be dismissed without the right of employment elsewhere. At the Putilov works the election meeting was held without notice being given, so that scarcely anyone was present. Next day the Putilov men heard to their amazement that they had unanimously elected to the soviet some twenty Communists!
In the district where I was living the Jewish agitator, of whom I have previously spoken, was entrusted with the conduct of a much-advertised house-to-house campaign to impress the workers and especially their wives with the virtues of the Communists. The reception he received was by no means universally cordial and the ultimate triumph of the Communists was to him a matter of considerable relief. It goes without saying this was the only kind of canvassing. All non-Communist parties being denounced as counterrevolutionary, the entire populace, except for a few intrepid individuals who courageously proclaimed their adherence to non-Bolshevist Socialist parties, sheltered itself behind the title of “nonpartisan,” and having no programme but an anti-Communist one, put forward none at all. To put one forward was impossible anyway, for the use of the printing press, the right of free speech, and the right to use firearms (which played a great part) were confined exclusively to Communists.
At this particular election the Bolsheviks forgot the women workers, who turned out to be unexpectedly obstreperous. In one factory on the Vasili Island, where mostly women were employed, the Communists were swept off the platform and the women held their own meeting, electing eight nonpartisan members. In several smaller workshops the Communists suffered unexpected defeat, perhaps because all the available arms were concentrated in the larger factories, and the ultimate outcome of the elections, though the Communists of course were in the majority, was a reduction of their majority from ninety to eighty-two percent.
On the opening day of the soviet, armed with the order of a guest from my regiment, I made my way to the famous Tauride Palace, now called “Palace of Uritsky,” the seat of the former Duma. I pictured to myself, as I entered the building, the memorable days and nights of March, 1917. There was no such enthusiasm now as there had been then. No, now there was war, war between a Party and the People. Machine-guns fixed on motorcycles were posted threateningly outside the porch and a company of Reds
