The Bolshevik Myth quotes

To them revolution is not a mere change of externals: it implies the complete dislocation of life, the shattering of dominant traditions, the annulment of accepted standards. The habitual, measured step of existence is interrupted, accustomed criterions become inoperative, former precedents are void.

Existence is forced into uncharted channels; every action demands self-reliance; every detail calls for new, independent decision.

The typical, the familiar, have disappeared; dissolved is the coherence and interrelation of the parts that formerly constituted one whole. New values are to be created.

The captain claims he is sailing under sealed orders. The men are nearly crazy with the uncertainty and worry over the women and children left behind. What if we are to be landed on Denikin territory? …

We were kidnapped, literally kidnapped out of bed in the dead of night.

It was late in the evening, December 20, when the prison keepers entered our cell at Ellis Island and ordered us to “get ready at once.” I was just undressing; the others were in their bunks, asleep. We were taken completely by surprise.

At 6 a.m., Sunday, December 21, we started on our journey. Slowly the big city receded, wrapped in a milky veil.

The tall skyscrapers, their outlines dimmed, looked like fairy castles lit by winking stars⁠—and then all was swallowed in the distance.

December 24.—The Buford is an old boat built in 1885. She was used as a military transport during the Philippine War, and is not seaworthy any more. We ship sea constantly, and it pours through the hatches. Two inches of water cover the floor;

December 27.—The Boston deportee, a former sailor, claims the course of the Buford was changed twice during the night. “Perhaps making for the Portugal Coast,” he said. It is rumored we may be turned over to Denikin. The men are much worried.

Human psychology everywhere has a basic kinship. Even in prison I found the deepest tragedies lit up by a touch of humor.

In spite of the great anxiety regarding our destination, there is much laughter and joking in our cabin. Some wit among the boys has christened the Buford the “Mystery Ship.”

“How starved they look, and how poorly clad,” I remarked.

“No worse than you see at the London stations,” Lansbury replied curtly. “You’re hypercritical, Berkman.”

In an automobile of the Foreign Office we were driven to a large house, with high iron fence and guard at the gate, the former residence of Y⸺, the Sugar King of Russia, now occupied by Karakhan.

“I command the citizens of Moscow,” I read. Citizens? I sought the date. It was marked January 15, 1920, and was signed by the Commissar of Militia. The Prikaz vividly recalled the gendarmes and the Cossack order of things, and I resented it.

The Revolution should find another language, I thought.

I passed the Red Square where the heroes of the Revolution are buried along the Kremlin wall. Thousands of others, as devoted and heroic, lie in unknown graves throughout the country and on the fronts. A new world is not born without pain.

In the popular mouth the criminal was “the unfortunate,” and the peasants were ever responsive to a cry for help. In Siberia they used to place food outside their huts, in order that escaped prisoners might appease their hunger.

Starvation and misery seem to have hardened the Russian and stifled his native generosity.

The tears he has shed have dried up the wells of sympathy.

Starvation and misery seem to have hardened the Russian and stifled his native generosity.

The tears he has shed have dried up the wells of sympathy.

“The House Committee is the one to see to the matter,” the porter said; “it’s their business, and they don’t like us folks to interfere.”

“A practical idealist” bent upon the realization of his Communist dream by whatever means, and subordinating to it every ethical and humanitarian consideration. A man sincerely convinced that evil methods may serve a good purpose and be justified by it.

A Jesuit of the Revolution who would force mankind to become free in accordance with his interpretation of Marx.

In short, a thoroughgoing revolutionist in the sense of Netchayev, one who would sacrifice the greater part of mankind—if need be—to secure the triumph of the Social Revolution.

A fanatic? Most certainly.

What is a fanatic but a man whose faith is impregnable to doubt? It is the faith that moves mountains, the faith that accomplishes. Revolutions are not made by Hamlets.

The traditional “great” man, the “big personality” of current conception, may give to the world new thoughts, noble vision, inspiration. But the man that “sees every side” cannot lead, cannot control.

“Have you any proof that the men are spies?”

“Proof?” he repeated sternly; “they have been denounced to me. We are in the war zone and we can’t take any chances on innocence.”

With a deprecating gesture he added: “Of course, I’ll examine their documents first.”

They fear the Commissars more than the old tchinovniki. They resented my question whether they would prefer the monarchy. No, they do not want the pomeshtchiki (landlords) again, nor the Tsar, but they don’t want the Bolsheviki, either.

“We were treated like cattle before,” said a flaxen-haired peasant with blue eyes, “and it was in the name of the Little Father. Now they speak to us in the name of the Party and the proletariat, but we are treated like cattle, the same as before.”

“Lenin is a good man,” one of the peasants put in.

He slowly scratched his head and a sly smile came into his eyes.

“No, golubtchik,” he replied, “the land we took ourselves. Isn’t it so, little brothers?”

he turned to the others.

“Are you not afraid to talk so freely?” I warned him.

“Oh, who cares!” he laughed. “Let ’em shoot me. Am I a dog to wear a muzzle on my snout?”

Three days later Prelide notified me at Sebezh of the arrival of a new group of emigrants. Hoping they might be the long expected political deportees from America, I hastened to the border.

“Out here in the open?” I asked in surprise.

“Certainly. If they attempt to run, they are guilty. I’m a dead shot.”

Half an hour’s conversation with the “suspects” convinced me of their inoffensiveness. One of them, a half-witted young fellow, was deported from England as a public nuisance; another for refusing to pay his wife alimony;

Others are less outspoken. This morning I met N⸺, of the Buford group, a man of intellectual attainment and much political acumen. “What do you think of it?” I asked, anxious to know his view of the proposed changes.

“I can’t afford the luxury of expressing an opinion,” he replied with a sad smile.

“I have been promised a place on a commission to be sent to Europe. It’s my only chance of joining my wife and children.”

“It was not left to the choice of the men?” I asked in surprise.

“Well,” he smiled, “we leave nothing to chance.”

Returning from the Voskov funeral I met another procession. Two men and a woman walked behind a pushcart on which stood a rough, unpainted pine coffin, holding the dead body of their brother.

The procession in the dark streets was mournful, funereal. The little wax candles resembled will-o’-the-wisps blown about by the breeze, their unsteady flicker faintly suggesting the icons and banners fluttering above the heads of the worshipers.

Faith is still alive, but the power of the Church is broken.

Bieland arrived from America bringing the first direct news I have had from the States. Reaction is rampant, he relates; 100% Americanism is celebrating its bloody victory.

“Yes, my friends,” the contractor spoke again as if remembering an unfinished thought, “the Poles must be taught a lesson, and we must all defend the Revolution.”

“What are we to defend?” Pyotr demanded bitterly. “The fat Commissars and the Cheka with its shooting, that’s what we defend. We haven’t got anything else.”

“You talk like a counterrevolutionist,” Vanya shouted, jumping off the stove.

And above the shouts and din of the struggling mass, drowning all other cries, sounds the desperate, ceaseless plea: Bread! Bread!

Moscow is eaten with bureaucracy, Petrograd is a dying city.

Not here is the Revolution. Out in the country, among the common people, one must see new Russia and live its life in the making.

There has been neither time nor opportunity to reconstruct one’s mental and physical mode of life, to orient oneself within the constantly changing environment.

The instincts of hunger and fear have become the sole leitmotif of thought, feeling, and action.

Uncertainty is all-pervading and persistent: it is the only definite, actual reality. The question of bread, the danger of attack, are the exclusive topics of interest.

Reunited with his wife and children, G⸺ remained in the city, having received a position in a local institution. He finds life in Kharkov much more bearable, though the Communist campaign against the intellectuals constantly rouses the people against them.

“The Bolsheviki have turned the intelligentsia into a class of hunted animals,”

G⸺ said. “We are looked upon as even worse than the bourgeoisie.

Skoropadsky, Petlura, Denikin, like the savage atamans of Gogol’s tales, have vied with each other in filling the streams that crimson the Dnieper in these the darkest days of Russia.

Incredible vitality of man! Exasperating, yet blessed brevity of human memory!

Today the city looks bright and peaceful—forgotten is the slaughter, forgotten the sacrifices of yesterday.

Deep gloom hangs over the traders and their customers. With a sense of outrage they point to the large delicatessen stores on the Krestchatik which have not been molested. “They have protection,” someone says indignantly.

“My God, my God!” a woman cries. “It’s we poor people who gave that banquet to the delegates.”

She was introduced to me as Gallina—a young woman in peasant dress, but of graceful figure, and with thoughtful blue eyes. “Gallina?” I wondered. “Yes, Makhno’s wife.”

Every detail of our existence has become subject to Bolshevist regulation. In short, you will find the situation in Odessa about the same as in the rest of Russia,” Semyon assured me.

“But life passes by the Soviet apparatus, because life is incomparably stronger than any attempts at doctrinaire regulation.”

As in other Soviet cities, the population is supplied with a bread and products card. But except Communists, very few receive enough bread to exist. On the “bourgeois” categories none has been issued for months; in fact, since the Bolsheviki took Odessa in January.

His reply was characteristic. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘we found that if you don’t feed human beings, they continue to live somehow. But if you don’t feed horses, the stupid beasts die. That’s why we don’t nationalize the cabmen.’ ”

Life is indeed stronger than decrees; it sprouts through every crevice of the socialist armor.

When private trade was forbidden and only the cooperatives were permitted to continue, all business places suddenly became inspired by feelings of altruism, and every store was decorated with the sign of the Epo (cooperative).

“Only weaklings would save their lives thus,” the hostess protests.

“Few can be brave with a loaded gun pointed at their temple,” the Doctor remarks with a sigh.

It is a cold, chilly day as I turn my steps toward Sadovaya Street. There, at a secret session, is to take place a Menshevik costnaya gazetta (oral newspaper), and I am to meet prominent members of the party.

others ignored them. One Commissar even threatened to arrest them. Life has become harder than ever before, they complained. Under the Tsar they had been serfs; the White generals robbed them of their sons and cattle. They had set great hopes upon the Bolsheviki.

“But it is the same whoever comes,” the peasants sighed; “for us poor people it’s always the same.”

Two of the soldiers had participated in the campaign against Makhno, and they were exchanging experiences.

“Germany has also had a revolution,” I informed her. “The Kaiser is gone.”

“Rev‑o‑lution?” she repeated in utter incomprehension. “Did Germany have war?”

I spent the night on a straw heap in the outhouse, joining our party early in the morning. The scenes of the previous day repeated themselves all along our route.

“To court!” a soldier shouted into the room. Both girls hurriedly rose, smoothed their hair, and walked out.

“Must we always be hating and killing?” the old woman repeated as she slowly followed them.

The sky is wrapped in gray.

Rain and sleet are in the air. Between the speakers’ words the rain strikes Jack’s coffin, punctuating the sentences as if driving nails into the casket.

Clear and rounded like the water drops are the official eulogies falling upon the hearing with dull meaninglessness. Louise cowers on the wet ground. With difficulty I persuade her to rise, almost forcing her to her feet.

The long procession slowly winds its way to the cemetery. The students, arms linked, form a living chain on both sides of the great multitude. The sun is bright upon the hard, glistening snow.

Black Anarchist banners, interspersed with flashes of scarlet, flutter above like mournful arms of love.

A Kropotkin Museum is to be founded in memory of the great Anarchist scientist and teacher. The committee of Anarchist organizations in charge of the undertaking has requested Emma Goldman and myself to aid in its organization.

March 7.—Distant rumbling reaches my ears as I cross the Nevsky. It sounds again, stronger and nearer, as if rolling toward me. All at once I realize that artillery is being fired. It is 6 p.m. Kronstadt has been attacked!

Days of anguish and cannonading. My heart is numb with despair; something has died within me.

The people on the streets look bowed with grief, bewildered. No one trusts himself to speak. The thunder of heavy guns rends the air.

Pensively Pushkin stands on his stone pedestal, viewing life flowing by on the square bearing his name.

On the boulevard the trees are smiling with budding green, and promenaders bask in the April sun. Familiar sight of Moscow streets, yet with a strange new atmosphere about the people. The vision of Kronstadt had flashed across the city;

“Oh, she is doing well. With some Communist. I’m all alone in the world now.”

“Oh, I don’t want your pity,” she cries disconsolately. “Wish I’d died with mother.”

Further on the Tverskaya I find “Golos Truda,” the Anarchist publishing house, closed, a Cheka seal on the lock. A man is peering through the window at the havoc wrought within by the raiders.

some shots fell short, striking the ice just in front of us. In a flash whole companies disappeared, guns and all, sunk into the deep. It was a frightful night.” He pauses a moment; then, bending close to me, he whispers:

“In Kronstadt I learned the truth. It’s we who were the counterrevolutionists.”

The Universalist Club on the Tverskaya is deserted, its active members imprisoned since the Kronstadt events. Anarchists from various parts have been brought to the city, and are now in the Butirki and Taganka jails.

Delegates from distant lands call to discuss Russia and the Revolution. As in a dream they vision the glory of revelation and are thrilled with admiration for the Bolsheviki. With glowing fervor they dwell on the wondrous achievements of Communism.

Like a jagged scalpel their naive faith tears at my heart where bleeding lie my own high hopes, the hopes of my first days in Russia, deflowered and blighted by the ruthless hand of dictatorship.

Most sanguine and confident are the latest arrivals, secluded in the atmosphere of the Luxe and entirely unfamiliar with the life and thought of the people. Fascinated and awed, they marvel at the genius of the Party and its amazing success.

Now she is dead. Executed yesterday by the Cheka as a “bandit.”

Gray are the passing days. One by one the embers of hope have died out.

Terror and despotism have crushed the life born in October. The slogans of the Revolution are foresworn, its ideals stifled in the blood of the people. The breath of yesterday is dooming millions to death;

The slogans of the Revolution are foresworn, its ideals stifled in the blood of the people. The breath of yesterday is dooming millions to death; the shadow of today hangs like a black pall over the country. Dictatorship is trampling the masses under foot.

The Revolution is dead; its spirit cries in the wilderness.

High time the truth about the Bolsheviki were told. The whited sepulcher must be unmasked, the clay feet of the fetish beguiling the international proletariat to fatal will o’ the wisps exposed. The Bolshevik myth must be destroyed.

Gray are the passing days. One by one the embers of hope have died out.

Terror and despotism have crushed the life born in October.

The slogans of the Revolution are foresworn, its ideals stifled in the blood of the people. The breath of yesterday is dooming millions to death; the shadow of today hangs like a black pall over the country. Dictatorship is trampling the masses under foot.

High time the truth about the Bolsheviki were told. The whited sepulcher must be unmasked, the clay feet of the fetish beguiling the international proletariat to fatal will o’ the wisps exposed.

The Bolshevik myth must be destroyed.

I have decided to leave Russia.

Since my early youth, revolution⁠—social revolution⁠—was the great hope and aim of my life.

It signified to me the Messiah who was to deliver the world from brutality, injustice, and evil, and pave the way for a regenerated humanity of brotherhood, living in peace, liberty, and beauty.

In that state of mind I came to Soviet Russia. As I had so passionately avowed at our first meeting of welcome on the Russian frontier, I came prepared to ignore all theoretic differences of opinion.

I came to work, not to discuss. To learn, not to teach. To learn and to help.

I did learn, and I tried to help. I learned day by day, through the long weeks and months, in various parts of the country.

But my faith in the Communists and their integrity would not be influenced. It was proof even against the evidence of my own senses and judgment, of my impressions and experience.

Life, reality continuously challenged my faith.

I saw inequality and injustice on every hand, humanity trampled in the dust, alleged exigency made the cloak of treachery, deceit, and oppression. I saw the ruling Party suppress the vital impulses of the Revolution, discourage popular initiative and self-reliance so essential to its growth.

And day by day the conviction kept growing that Bolshevism was proving fatal to the best interests of the Revolution; that political power had become the sole aim of the dominant Party; that the State with its barrack Communism was enslaving and destructive.

I saw the Bolsheviki steadily gain momentum on the inclined plane of tyranny; the Party dictatorship become the irresponsible absolutism of a few overlords; the apostles of liberty turn executioners of the people.

Every day the damning evidence was accumulating. I saw the Bolsheviki reflect the Revolution as a monstrous grotesque; I saw tragic revolutionary necessity institutionalised into irresponsible terror, the blood of thousands shed without reason or measure.

I saw entire villages laid waste by Bolshevik artillery. I saw the prisons filled—not with counterrevolutionists, but with workers and peasants, with proletarian intellectuals, with starving women and children.

I saw the revolutionary elements persecuted, the spirit of October crucified on the Golgotha of the omnipotent Communist State.

Still I would not concede the appalling truth. Still the hope persisted that the Bolsheviki, though absolutely wrong in principle and practice, yet grimly held on to some shreds of the revolutionary banner.