I had hardly emerged from the station, intending to look for a cabman, when a Red Guard Commissary, accompanied by a private with a naked sword, stopped me with the polite query:
“Madame Bochkareva?”
“Yes.”
“Will you come with me, please?” he suggested.
“Where?” I asked.
“To the Smolny Institute.”
“But why?”
“Because I have orders to detain all officers returning from the front,” he replied.
“But I am only going home!” I tried to argue.
“Yes, I understand. But as an officer you will also understand that I must obey orders. They will probably release you.”
He hailed a cabman and we drove to the Smolny Institute, the seat of the Bolshevik Government. It impressed me as a strongly garrisoned fortress. There were armed sentries everywhere. Accompanied by Red Guards I was led inside. There were Guards at every desk. I was taken before a sailor. He was very rough and brusque.
“Where are you going?” he demanded curtly.
“I am going home, to a village near Tomsk,” I replied.
“Then why are you armed?” he sneered.
“Because I am an officer, and this is my uniform,” I answered.
He blazed up.
“An officer, eh? You will be an officer no more. Give me that pistol and sword!” he ordered.
The arms were those given to me at the consecration of the flag of the Battalion. I prized them too much to hand them over to this rogue of a sailor, and I refused to comply with his demand. He grew furious. It would have been useless to resist as the room was full of Red Guards. I declared that if he wanted my arms he could take them, but I would never surrender them myself.
He violently tore the pistol and sword from me and pronounced me under arrest. There was a dark cellar in the Institute which was used as a place of detention, and I was sent down there and locked up. I was hungry, but received no answer to all my calls, and remained in the hole till the following morning. As soon as I was brought upstairs I began to demand my arms. The various officials, however, remained deaf to my pleas.
I was informed that I should be taken before Lenin and Trotsky, and was soon led into a large, light room where two men of contrasting appearance were seated, apparently expecting my entrance. One had a typical Russian face. The other looked Jewish. The first was Nikolai Lenin, the second Leon Trotsky. Both arose as I stepped in and walked toward me a few steps, stretching out their hands and greeting me courteously.
Lenin apologized for my arrest, explaining that he had learned of it only that morning. Inviting me to a seat, the two Bolshevik chiefs complimented me upon my record of service and courage, and began to sketch to me the era of happiness that they intended to procure for Russia. They talked simply, smoothly and very beautifully. It was for the common people, the toiling masses, the disinherited that they were fighting. They wanted justice for all. Wasn’t I of the working class myself? Yes, I was. Wouldn’t I join them and cooperate with their party in bringing happiness to the oppressed peasant and workman? They wanted peasant women like myself: they had the highest esteem for them.
“You will bring Russia not to happiness but to ruin,” I said.
“Why?” they asked. “We seek only what is good and right. The people are with us. You saw for yourself that the army is behind us.”
“I will tell you why,” I replied. “I have no objection to your beautiful plans for the future of Russia. But as for the immediate situation, if you take the soldiers away from the front, you are destroying the country.”
“But we do not want any more war. We are going to conclude peace,” the two leaders replied.
“How can you conclude peace without soldiers at the front? You are demobilizing the army already. You have got to make peace first and then let the men go home. I myself want peace, but if I were in the trenches I would never leave before peace had been signed. What you are doing will ruin Russia.”
“We are sending the soldiers away because the Germans will not advance against us, anyhow. They do not want to fight either,” was the reply.
It irritated me, this view of the Germans held by the men who now controlled the Government of my country.
“You don’t know the Germans!” I cried out. “We have lost so many lives in this war, and now you would give everything away without a struggle! You don’t know war! Take the soldiers away from the front and the Germans will come and seize upon everything they can lay hands on. This is war. I am a soldier and I know. But you don’t. Why did you take it upon yourselves to rule the country? You will ruin it!” I exclaimed in anguish.
Lenin and Trotsky laughed. I could see the irony in their eyes. They were learned and worldly. They had written books and travelled in foreign lands. And who was I? An illiterate Russian peasant woman. My lecture undoubtedly afforded them amusement. They smiled condescendingly at my suggestion that they did not know what war was in reality.
I rejected their proposal to cooperate with them and asked if I were free to leave. One of them rang a bell and a Red Guard entered. He was requested to accompany me out of the room and to provide me with a passport and a free ticket to Tomsk. Before leaving I asked for my arms, but was refused. I explained that they were partly of gold and given to me on an occasion that rendered them almost priceless to me. They answered that I would receive them back as soon as order was restored. Of course, I never got them back.
I left the room without
