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Emma Goldman, My Disillusionment In Russia
(London: C. W. Daniel Company, 1925)
Chapter VI
PREPARING FOR AMERICAN DEPORTEES
EVENTS in Moscow, quickly following each other, were full of interest.
I wanted to remain in that vital city, but as I had left all my
effects in Petrograd I decided to return there and then come back
to Moscow to join Lunacharsky in his work. A few days before my
departure a young woman, an Anarchist, came to visit me. She was
from the Petrograd Museum of the Revolution and she called to
inquire whether I would take charge of the Museum branch work
in Moscow. She explained that the original idea of the Museum
was due to the famous old revolutionist Vera Nikolaievna Figner,
and that it had recently been organized by nonpartizan elements.
The majority of the men and women who worked in the Museum were
not Communists, she said; but they were devoted to the Revolution
and anxious to create something which could in the future serve
as a source of information and inspiration to earnest students
of the great Russian Revolution. When my caller was informed that
I was about to return to Petrograd, she invited me to visit the
Museum and to become acquainted with its work.
Upon my arrival in Petrograd I found unexpected work awaiting
me. Zorin informed me that he had been notified by Tchicherin
that a thousand Russians had been deported from America and were
on their way to Russia. They were to be met at the border and
quarters were to be immediately prepared for them in Petrograd.
Zorin asked me to join the Commission about to be organized for
that purpose.
The plan of such a commission for American deportees had been
broached to Zorin soon after our arrival in Russia. At that time
Zorin directed us to talk the matter over with Tchicherin, which
we did. But three months passed without anything having been done
about it. Meanwhile, our comrades of the Buford were still
walking from department to department, trying to be placed where
they might do some good. They were a sorry lot, those men who
had come to Russia with such high hopes, eager to render service
to the revolutionary people. Most of them were skilled workers,
mechanics--men Russia needed badly; but the cumbersome Bolshevik
machine and general inefficiency made it a very complex matter
to put them to work. Some had tried independently to secure jobs,
but they could accomplish very little. Moreover, those who found
employment were soon made to feel that the Russian workers resented
the eagerness and intensity of their brothers from America. "Wait
till you have starved as long as we," they would say, "wait
till you have tasted the blessings of Commissarship, and we will
see if you are still so eager." In every way the deportees
were discouraged and their enthusiasm dampened.
To avoid this unnecessary waste of energy and suffering the Commission
was at last organized in Petrograd. It consisted of Ravitch, the
then Minister of Internal Affairs for the Northern District; her
secretary, Kaplun; two members of the Bureau of War Prisoners;
Alexander Berkman and myself. The new deportees were due in two
weeks, and much work was to be done to prepare for their reception.
It was unfortunate that no active participation could be expected
from Ravitch because her time was too much occupied. Besides holding
the post of Minister of the Interior she was Chief of the Petrograd
Militia, and she also represented the Moscow Foreign Office in
Petrograd. Her regular working hours were from 8 A.M. to 2 A.M.
Kaplun, a very able administrator, had charge of the entire internal
work of the Department and could therefore give us very little
of his time. There remained only four persons to accomplish within
a short time the big task of preparing living quarters for a thousand
deportees in starved and ruined Russia. Moreover, Alexander Berkman,
heading the Reception Committee, had to leave for the Latvian
border to meet the exiles.
It was an almost impossible task for one person, but I was very
anxious to save the second group of deportees the bitter experiences
and the disappointments of my fellow companions of the Buford.
I could undertake the work only by making the condition that I
be given the right of entry to the various government departments,
for I had learned by that time how paralyzing was the effect of
the bureaucratic red tape which delayed and often frustrated the
most earnest and energetic efforts. Kaplun consented. "Call
on me at any time for anything you may require," he said;
"I will give orders that you be admitted everywhere and supplied
with everything you need. If that should not help, call on the
Tcheka," he added. I had never called upon the police before,
I informed him; why should I do so in revolutionary Russia? "In
bourgeois countries that is a different matter," explained
Kaplun; "with us the Tcheka defends the Revolution and fights
sabotage." I started on my work determined to do without
the Tcheka. Surely there must be other methods, I thought.
Then began a chase over Petrograd. Materials were very scarce
and it was most difficult to procure them owing to the unbelievably
centralized Bolshevik methods. Thus to get a pound of nails one
had to file applications in about ten or fifteen bureaus; to secure
some bed linen or ordinary dishes one wasted days. Everywhere
in the offices crowds of Government employees stood about smoking
cigarettes, awaiting the hour when the tedious task of the day
would be over. My coworkers of the War Prisoners' Bureau fumed
at the irritating and unnecessary delays, but to no purpose. They
threatened with the Tcheka, with the concentration camp, even
with raztrel (shooting). The latter was the most favorite
argument. Whenever any difficulty arose one immediately heard
raztreliat--to be shot. But the expression, so terrible
in its significance, was gradually losing its effect upon the
people: man gets used to everything.
I decided to try other methods. I would talk to the employees
in the departments about the vital interest the conscious American
workers felt in the great Russian Revolution, and of their faith
and hope in the Russian proletariat. The people would become interested
immediately, but the questions they would ask were as strange
as they were pitiful: "Have the people enough to eat in America?
How soon will the Revolution be there? Why did you come to starving
Russia?" They were eager for information and news, these
mentally and physically starved people, cut off by the barbarous
blockade from all touch with the western world. Things American
were something wonderful to them. A piece of chocolate or a cracker
were unheard-of dainties--they proved the key to everybody's heart.
Within two weeks I succeeded in procuring most of the things needed
for the expected deportees, including furniture, linen, and dishes.
A miracle, everybody said.
However, the renovation of the houses that were to serve as living
quarters for the exiles was not accomplished so easily. I inspected
what, as I was told, had once been first-class hotels. I found
them located in the former prostitute district; cheap dives they
were, until the Bolsheviki closed all brothels. They were germ-eaten,
ill-smelling, and filthy. It was no small problem to turn those
dark holes into a fit habitation within two weeks. A coat of paint
was a luxury not to be thought of. There was nothing else to do
but to strip the rooms of furniture and draperies, and have them
thoroughly cleaned and disinfected.
One morning a group of forlorn-looking creatures, in charge of
two militiamen, were brought to my temporary office. They came
to work, I was informed. The group consisted of a one-armed old
man, a consumptive woman, and eight boys and girls, mere children,
pale, starved, and in rags. "Where do these unfortunates
come from?" "They are speculators," one of the
militiamen replied; "we rounded them up on the market."
The prisoners began to weep. They were no speculators, they protested;
they were starving, they had received no bread in two days. They
were compelled to go out to the market to sell matches or thread
to secure a little bread. In the midst of this scene the old man
fainted from exhaustion, demonstrating better than words that
he had speculated only in hunger. I had seen such "speculators"
before, driven in groups through the streets of Moscow and Petrograd
by convoys with loaded guns pointed at the backs of the prisoners.
I could not think of having the work done by these starved creatures.
But the militiamen insisted that they would not let them go; they
had orders to make them work. I called up Kaplun and informed
him that I considered it out of the question to have quarters
for American deportees prepared by Russian convicts whose only
crime was hunger. Thereupon Kaplun ordered the group set free
and consented that I give them of the bread sent for the workers'
rations. But a valuable day was lost.
The next morning a group of boys and girls came singing along
the Nevski Prospekt. They were kursanti from the Tauride
Palace who were sent to my office to work. On my first visit to
the palace I had been shown the quarters of the kursanti,
the students of the Bolshevik academy. They were mostly village
boys and girls housed, fed, clothed, and educated by the Government,
later to be placed in responsible positions in the Soviet régime.
At the time I was impressed by the institutions, but by April
I had looked somewhat beneath the surface. I recalled what a young
woman, a Communist, had told me in Moscow about these students.
"They are the special caste now being reared in Russia,"
she had said. "Like the church which maintains and educates
its religious priesthood, our Government trains a military and
civic priesthood. They are a favored lot." I had more than
one occasion to convince myself of the truth of it. The kursanti
were being given every advantage and many special privileges.
They knew their importance and they behaved accordingly.
Their first demand when they came to me was for the extra rations
of bread they had been promised. This demand satisfied, they stood
about and seemed to have no idea of work. It was evident that
whatever else the kursanti might be taught, it was not
to labor. But, then, few people in Russia know how to work. The
situation looked hopeless. Only ten days remained till the arrival
of the deportees, and the "hotels" assigned for their
use were still in as uninhabitable a condition as before. It was
no use to threaten with the Tcheka, as my coworkers did. I appealed
to the boys and girls in the spirit of the American deportees
who were about to arrive in Russia full of enthusiasm for the
Revolution and eager to join in the great work of reconstruction.
The kursanti were the pampered charges of the Government,
but they were not long from the villages, and they had had no
time to become corrupt. My appeal was effective. They took up
the work with a will, and at the end of ten days the three famous
hotels were as ready as far as willingness to work and hot water
without soap could make them. We were very proud of our achievement
and we eagerly awaited the arrival of the deportees.
At last they came, but to our great surprise they proved to be
no deportees at all. They were Russian war prisoners from Germany.
The misunderstanding was due to the blunder of some official in
Tchicherin's office who misread the radio information about the
party due at the border. The prepared hotels were locked and sealed;
they were not to be used for the returned war prisoners because
"they were prepared for American deportees who still might
come." All the efforts and labor had been in vain.
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