What I saw in Russia

Front matter

WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA

BY

GEORGE LANSBURY

00

PREFACE

Like everyone else these days who goes to Russia, I am writing a book. I have no apology to offer for inflicting yet one more story about “ Bolshevism ” on a long-suffering public. I am sure that, with the exchange of prisoners, and the return to England of hundreds of men and women lately detained in Russia, my book will not be the last.

A word of explanation is due as to how I came to get into Russia, at a time when Labour leaders and others were refused permission or passports to enter that forbidden country. The facts are quite simple. Last January, peace was about to be made between Esthonia and the Russian Soviet Republic. The “ Daily Herald ” numbers amongst its friends members of all the delegations in London representing the border States of Russia. We had specially championed the cause of Esthonia in the pages of the weekly “ Herald.” I thought it would be a good thing to go through Scandinavia to Dorpat, see the peace signed, and, if possible, enter Russia with the returning Russian delegates. Nothing was certain ; I had no sort of understanding with anybody as to whether I should be allowed to enter Russia or not. I asked for a passport to Scandinavia and Finland and secured the necessary “ visés ” before leaving England—except the Finnish, which, I was informed, could not be given for two weeks. I did not ask for a passport to Russia for the quite simple reason that neither the British nor any other Government had any power to issue such passports, since no Government in Europe at that time had officially recognised the Soviet Government. There was no mystery about my journey. I travelled like any other newspaper man, saw everybody of importance in each country through which I passed, and tried to learn all there was to learn about conditions. My intention was to be away from England three weeks or a month. I was away nine weeks, every day of which brought me knowledge, understanding and experience. I want to put on record my deep debt of gratitude to the Ministers and other Government officials, both British and foreign, with whom I came in contact. During the whole nine weeks, except for the short controversy in Copenhagen over Litvinoff's hotel, and for the unfortunate escapade which ended in my arrest and imprisonment in a detention camp, called a “ Quarantine Station,” in Finland, my relationships with everyone were most cordial. I was treated as an honoured guest by Socialists and non-Socialists ; I received the confidences of Ministers, and of one Prime Minister. The Customs Houses, Passport Offices, and Secret Police, were a very great trial and inconvenience, but they were all safely negotiated—although at times it seemed as if the very devil himself were engaged in spoking my wheels.

I learned one thing which is indelibly fixed on my mind. It is this : all Governments from the greatest to the least are ruled by fear. It is fear which has created the British vSecret Police under Sir Basil Thomson, and it is fear which has linked this department up with the Secret Police of other countries. So powerful, so widespread, is the net which Sir Basil Thomson and his secret agents are weaving, that even the domain of ordinary diplomacy is not free of them. When James O’Grady went to Denmark to negotiate the exchange of prisoners, the most important member of his staff was one of the chief assistants to Sir Basil Thomson—who, I suppose, knows more about the activities of us all than we know ourselves. It is mere literal truth to say that the negotiations between O’Grady and Litvinoff became cordial and possible only after this gentleman's return to England.

I think it well that the British people should understand we are now partially ruled by an irresponsible Secret Police. While the working classes are arguing about the sort of International they wish to establish, the Capitalist Governments have created a new “ International ” made up of spies and Agents Provocateurs, and this in order to preserve for the privileged few in all countries the right to exploit their fellow men and women. The Workers’ International should make one of the first objects of its propaganda the entire sweeping away, root and branch, of this system of international mischief-making and spying. Unless we do so, there will be no sanctuary in the world for revolutionists or even reformers.

Had the present iniquitous system and laws been in force fifty years ago, Mazzini, Marx, Kropotkin, and thousands of others would have found no refuge in England or elsewhere. The “ sacred right of property ” for the time being has swept away the “ sacred right of asylum ” for political offenders. In defence of this International Bureaucracy it is argued that the need for it exists because of the propaganda carried on by secret Societies and Revolutionaries. It is a strange commentary on this argument that many Governments carry on a persistent secret propaganda, paid for out of secret service funds which are never checked or audited, thus enabling police officials to have at their disposal huge sums of money with which to create and stir up the violence they are employed to track down.

It is also possible to use such funds and secret power for blackmail and private revenge, and in some countries this is actually done. The one and only safeguard for democracy is perfect freedom of speech and organisation, and a free press.

Yes, fear is what we all have to fear, for this it is which makes individuals and governments cruel beyond words. We hear a great deal about Russian atrocities in prison. In at least one of the Baltic States, I know for a fact, torture is still applied to prisoners, and I also know that in Great Britain political prisoners are treated in the usual inhuman manner in which all common prisoners are treated : that is, garbed in a hideous uniform stamped with the broad arrow, kept in solitary confinement, forcibly fed if they hungerstrike, and in every way made to feel how sordidly mean and miserable their position is. I call attention to these facts here, because they apply to every country, and my one solid conviction gained in conversation with all sorts of people is that Socialist and Labour Governments must be prepared at all hazards to throw over all such methods, once they come into power.

In my story I do not propose to be an apologist. I do not consider Lenin or his comrades need me or any one else to act as such. In my judgment, no set of men and women responsible for a revolution of the magnitude of the Russian Revolution ever made fewer mistakes or carried their revolution through with less interference with the rights of individuals, or with less terrorism and destruction, than the men in control in Russia. When I speak of the rights of individuals I exclude property rights, for the one object of the revolution was to abolish for good and all the “ right ” of one set of individuals to exploit the life and work of their fellow men and women. Further, it is no part of my business as a Socialist to search out and strive to discover material for criticism or denunciation : I did not go to Russia as a cold-blooded investigator seeking to discover what there was of evil ; I went as a Socialist, to see what a socialist revolution looks like at close quarters ; and, above everything else, to look at the faces of those who made the revolution. It was the spirit moving the men and women responsible for the revolution I wanted to discover, for all else is of no importance.

The Russian people have a long and difficult path to tread before they reach their goal : there will be much more agony and bloody sweat. I am confident, however, that from this young, mighty people new life will come. In the meantime we who live in lands where the people are much older and more experienced in the methods and ways of the devil, and where enthusiasm is frowned upon, must look to it that we put no obstacles in the way of this young people ; instead, we too should cast away the works of darkness and join them in their march toward the dawn. People like me, who for long years have served in the ranks of Labour and Socialism, and for whom there cannot be a very long span of years ahead, must give love, sympathy and help to the virile and young everywhere.

In England we have the forms of democracy, but oh, so little of the spirit of democracy ! In Russia, out of the autocracy and oppression of Czardom real equality, real democracy are being born. The form is not always there, but the spirit is. Where else in the world will you find the equality of suffering there is in Russia ; where else would you find all equally sharing the hunger, privation, and disease caused by the Allies’ blockade ? Where else in all the world will you find a Government treating enemy aliens as Soviet Russia treated them during the years of war and struggle on every front? And where would you find so few enemy aliens interned and imprisoned. And, sad to say, as a requital they have been lied about and slandered, as if in very deed they had been the greatest tyrants under the sun.

I see the Socialists of Russia as a band of men and women striving to build the New Jerusalem; they declare that for their task they need no help from on High, no power but the power which economic forces bring them. I disagree, and beheve that, in spite of their theories, in defiance of their creed, they are actuated by purely moral and religious motives ; that they of all men, in their work for Russia, are doing what Christians call the Lord's work. My own faith and belief in “ pacifism ” is unshaken. I still think that salvation comes not from without, but from within. Yet when I look at England, I am not sure that if I had the power I should at once abolish the police. And, when I know that the overwhelming mass of my Christian friends defend bloodshed, violence, and horrors, wherever these are ordered by Governments ; when I realise that the high dignitaries of the Church in the House of Lords are like dumb driven cattle when men like Connolly and Pearce are shot in Dublin, or when Dyer in the sacred name of order slaughters unarmed Indians in the streets of Amritsar; and, finally, when I see and hear no protest from Christendom against the wicked vicious treaty which has brought suffering and death to millions of our fellow creatures, and will bring further terror and misery to millions yet unborn—when I think of these things, I am constrained to ask, who is there amongst the Churches and Governments of Europe and America that dare cast the first stone at the Soviet Government of Russia ?

Above and over everything else we need to understand that personal success is of no account. The one and only thing that matters is we should be true to the highest that is in us.

Through long weary ages men and women have struggled toward the golden age. Again and again they have found themselves disappointed, cast down, because the higher they reached, the more severe their struggles, the farther off appeared their goal. In Russia, indeed throughout the world, this struggle for the highest has assumed a new guise. We are understanding that from within comes salvation, and at the same time we understand what appears to be a paradox, that in modern life we cannot be socially saved alone. We understand clearer than ever the meaning of the cry, “ Am I my brother’s keeper ? ” for we know “ our brother is our keeper.” Look where we will, go where we may, the old theories of life have proved themselves valueless, and to-day the hope of the world is the cry of the ages—“ Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.” Liberty is life, Equality is the realisation that life for all is of value, Fraternity is Love and Comradeship.

01

WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA

CHAPTER I

Crossing by water from England to France or from England to Ireland is the kind of material fact that of itself makes one conscious of going from one country to another, but travelling from England to Scotland there is no such fact to remind us we are leaving the South for the more sombre North. I remember once travelling from London to Edinburgh in company with those sturdy Scots, J. R. Macdonald and George Barnes. With the usual modesty of people from the hard-headed North, they had both occupied some time in what I am afraid was a hopeless endeavour to give me some knowledge of political science as understood by them. On crossing the Tweed at Berwick George Barnes suddenly called out : “ Throw open the windows, Lansbury, and let in the pure free air of Scotland.”

Of course, I did so, but strange as it may sound to a Scotsman I could not discover any difference between the air one side of the river and the other neither could I see any difference in the look of the people—they walked about as aimlessly as elsewhere. Of course they speak a sort of language a little difficult for a Londoner to understand, and occasionally wear skirts and kilts—the utility of which is past the comprehension of a mere southerner. I was reminded of these incidents when standing on the Finnish side of the Httle river, the middle of which forms the imaginary border line between Russia and Finland. The men and women on both sides looked exactly alike most of them spoke the same language. And yet each side of the river is an armed camp. People on the Finnish side are armed to defend a capitalist republic, on the Russian side to defend a social revolution. Only on one side, and that the Russian, did the fighters understand that frontiers are not real dividing lines these days—that only systems really divide, all else being makebelieve.

Before the revolution the train service from Helsingfors to Petrograd and Moscow and then on across Russia was the most efficient in that part of the world. To-day, with neither coal nor oil available, and with wood only for use on the locomotives, the service is anything but efficient. In addition, the railway bridge across the river is broken down and forms a kind of dam : it lies athwart the stream, a witness to the destruction and folly of war.

The journey from Helsingfors began on Tuesday, February 3rd, and ended on Thursday, February 5th, at 5 o'clock, when we crossed the river. The time had been spent in 18 hours travelling by train and, for the remainder, in rushing from one police and military headquarters to another, and finally to the secret police, getting the necessary visés to enable us to pass over. We were a queer little company gathered on the Finnish side of the river ; chief amongst us was an English officer, cursing his own and everybody else's luck because the “ Reds ” on the other side, unaware of the value of a British officer's dignity and time, had kept him waiting over four hours. Next in importance I suppose was the chief of the Finnish Secret Police. I am not sure as to his feelings towards me : I still think if he had dared he would have stopped our going across. There was also a goodly sprinkling of military people, chief of whom was a very agreeable young captain who could speak English. He was kindness itself to us, and when Griffin Barry and I were in despair about getting our luggage from the station to the river, he volunteered the assistance of his men and did everything in his power to make us under- stand that he was our friend and desirous of helping us.

At last we saw a band of men and women coming down the bank of the river from the other side. We walked down to meet them and, as is the custom on such occasions, everybody stopped at an imaginary point in the centre of the river, and for the first time I was able to see “ Red ” soldiers face to face. Whatever else may be said of these men who are holding the fort for Russia on this front, it is an undeniable fact that for honesty of expression, modesty, dignity and pride in their own manhood, they cannot be beaten. From their uniforms no one could tell who was an officer or who was a private. The Commander-in-Chief wore no decorations and no epaulettes or feathers. The Commissar, who is also a Colonel, carried himself with a natural dignity which somehow made us all understand he was a leader amongst men. After a few minutes’ parley we all climbed to the Finnish side again, in order to exchange papers. The English officer enquired for the “ Red ” officer’s credentials. The only credential he could produce was his card of membership of the Communist Party. Then our turn came. I produced a letter of recommendation from Litvinoff, and Barry produced a passport he had received a few weeks before, but neither was of much use, as no one in authority on this frontier had received instructions as to our coming. We were told, however, that we could go across and enquiries would be made as to our future movements.

At 4.50 we marched down again, and in a few minutes I was almost shouting for joy that at last I was in Russia. If I had been less self-conscious I should have sung The Red Flag, for just a few hundred yards ahead I saw the flag of “ International Socialism ” flying over a Government building, which turned out to be the residential headquarters of the Commissar Commandant of the district. This man and his wife live here in the very simplest manner possible. They have no children, so she accompanies her husband to the war zone and shares his dangers. Other women similarly situated are doing likewise.

Comrade Kokko, for that is his name, was formerly manager of a big works in Helsingfors. When the revolution broke out, like everyone else he was obliged to choose on which side he would take his stand : he joined the “ Reds.” When Mannerheim and the Germans smashed the revolution, he and thousands of other Finns fled to Russia, and are now enrolled as a Finnish “ Red ” army, assisting to protect Russia against the attacks of the “ White ” Finns.

After a short sledge ride, we arrived at the house, and soon discovered we were an “ international ” party. Between us there were four different languages : Russian, French, English, and Finnish. Somehow we made ourselves understood to each other, and very soon were all talking together. Words fail me to describe the sense of peaceful security which came over me while here. Before getting to Raiyoki I had been feeling sick and ill. The worry and strain had told on both Barry and me. The continued coming up against one difficulty after another had given me a very violent headache, which just vanished once I was amongst friends. Over and over again I found myself wishing Athelstan Riley and Lord Northcliffe could have been present, and seen how heartily I was enjoying myself with these men and women they so ignorantly denounce as brigands and murderers. The words “ shaking hands with murder ” came again and again to my mind, and what puzzled me most of all was the fact that I could neither see nor hear of any trace of the love of bloodshed and slaughter. As I listened, I could discover no trace of the hatred and bitterness I have listened to in railway carriages in England during the war. It seemed to me, though, that the mass of people are all alike. It is only the few who are hateful and brutal. People everywhere are much alike : in fact, as we stood in the middle of the frozen river, the thought came to my mind that if we were all stripped, and only one language were spoken, it would be very difficult to find in what essential things we differ from one another.

We all eat and drink, love and hate, work and sleep. What is it divides us into “ Reds ” and “ Whites ” ? Only the downright crass stupidity which makes people imagine that a customs-house is something sent by God, and that frontiers are an invention of nature to keep people apart.

I felt no more shame shaking hands and taking food with the officers and men of the “ Red ” army than I did thirteen months earlier taking food with British officers in Cologne. I was as proud of one as the other : that is, I felt no pride at all, I simply felt a great pleasure on both occasions. Yet I was in company with people whose business it was to kill, both in Germany and Russia.

Humanity, however, is always better than it appears. The average soldier and officer no more likes killing than any of the rest of us ; neither do revolutionists. It is the training of centuries which is our undoing. We have all been taught to rely on brute force. Some day we shall discover that the true dynamic of life is knowledge and understanding.

Here in Russia conditions were different from what they were at the British headquarters in Cologne. Our new-found friends wished to feed us, but, although they were officers and privates combined, there was nothing for us to have except bread and tea. Usually on this front, I believe, it is possible to get extra food from Finland. We had struck an unlucky patch, for everything was used up ; so we undid our bags, unloaded our stock of ham, butter and cheese, and some fourteen of us sat down to what was for our friends a very sumptuous repast. After this some officers arrived from Petrograd, chief of whom was the chief officer of the whole Petrograd district, Comrade Rachi. He heard all we had to tell him about ourselves and agreed to take us to the Finnish headquarters at Petrograd until he could get word from Moscow what to do with us.

We had three hours to wait for a train, so entered into a discussion about the revolution, terrorism and violence generally. None of them accepted my view about violence ; all understood the Tolstoyan position, but were confident it could not be applied. Not one would agree that there had been outrage and murder for murder's sake. All agreed that here and there private vengeance had been taken and outrages committed, and all had stories to tell of “ White ” murders and terrorism, especially under Mannerheim.

It is worth remarking that most of these Finnish “ Reds ” believe that had the “ Red ” Government established in Finland been more violent in its methods it would not have been overthrown. They tell with indignation the story of Mannerheim’s slaughter of 30,000 ; and they asked me why those Christians who denounce “ Red ” “ atrocities ” do not equally denounce these  ”White ” massacres. One of the chief officers at supper with us was formerly an officer in the Czar's army. This gave me the chance to enquire whether there was any danger that these officers might turn round and plot against the revolution. The answer was very simple, and very emphatic. The “ Red ” army is ruled not from above but from below : officers have only to obey orders—when they refuse they are removed. Policy is dictated by the workers, only tactics and execution of orders is left to officers.

I asked this ex-Czarist General why he had become a communist. He replied it was a process of conversion. The Revolution came. No one in the army, especially among the officers, knew very much about its aims and objects ; now they were understanding better. As for himself, he was a convinced communist, and was very proud to be an officer in Trotsky’s army.

So far as I could judge, the relationships between officers and men were extremely cordial. There is no “ kow-towing ” as in our army ; no clicking of heels and saluting for the special benefit of officers. (Heels are clicked to everybody : this foolish system obtains all through Scandinavia). We all sat at the same table for our food and throughout there was a true spirit of comradeship amongst us. The behaviour of all towards the women was very good indeed. Mrs. Kokko was treated with respect and regard, as if she were the mother of the regiment.

Somewhere about 10 o'clock we made a move towards Bielo Ostrov station. We travelled by an ordinary train packed full of people. There was no room for our party in the carriages, so we travelled with the guard. I was allowed to sit on the seat usually occupied by that official. We were a mixed lot : railway workers of all grades, generals, brigadier-generals, colonels, commissars, and some privates. Here was a chance of seeing the relationships between civilians and soldiers. They were most cordial ; discussion on all sorts of topics took place, and sometimes the arguments used were very warm, especially on the question of what part trade unions are to play in the new industrial life of Russia.

We arrived at Petrograd about 11.45 p.m. It was a glorious moonlight night, bitterly cold. The roads and streets were covered with hard frozen snow. As we left the station it was possible to look at our fellow travellers. All of them appeared in good health, and none of them seemed to be suffering from the intense cold.

Here, as elsewhere in Russia, freedom of movement is circumscribed by the authorities. For all this, many thousands of people are travelling every day.

Our friend Rachi had arranged for a motor to meet us. I understand there are about forty cars in Moscow and forty in Petrograd, all used by the Government for one purpose or another. We had a delightful half-hour's drive through the city. No one but those who have experienced it can realise what it means to drive into a foreign city for the first time. There is everywhere so much to be seen. Russian cities, even Petrograd, most modern of all European Russian towns, give one a sense of strangeness and bigness. Always in Russia the sky appears unending, and this night I saw sights which are indelibly stamped on my memory. Only once before have I felt quite the same. About thirty-five years ago I saw a very different scene when sailing up the river to Brisbane in Australia : then the glorious foliage and scenery, with little white shanties dotted here and there, made the whole 500 emigrants, of whom I was one, imagine we were indeed entering the promised land. And now I was seeing other sights, which will stand out for ever in my memory —riding through Petrograd under brilliant moonlight ; catching sight of first one great tower and then another ; tearing along the river embankment to see, as in a flash, the long, narrow, sinister-looking, gilded tower of the hideous fortress of Peter and Paul ; seeing, a second or two later, as in a moving picture, the Minaret and towers of the Mosque erected to the service of Mahomet. We passed the Admiralty buildings, the Hermitage picture gallery, the British Embassy, hearing as we passed the story of how our countryman, Captain Crombie, met his death. We crossed the square in front of the Winter Palace, and at last found ourselves at the headquarters of the “ Red ” Finns, and were very hospitably welcomed by Mrs. Rachi and her family.

It was very difficult to talk, because I knew no language but my own. Barry speaks French, it is true, but no one understood that much better than English. Yet what does language matter? When people are tired and hungry they are able to make their wants known without words, so we were fed, shown to our rooms, and were very soon in darkness. There was little or no sleep for me : the day's experiences would keep flood- ing my mind. I wished, how I wished, I could have turned all England out to share my experience, and so let them see Russian Bolsheviks as they really are, not as they are painted in the capitalist press as brutal murderers and terrorist villains !

We all got up pretty early, but our day was rather wasted. Most of the Soviet officials were away in Moscow attending a Congress. It was consequently difficult to find our interpreter. Barry, who knows Petrograd thoroughly, went out and made a brave endeavour to find someone who could talk with us, but it was no use ; we just walked about where we could, looked at people, and marvelled at how well they seemed to be—and, what is more, at how much activity there was in evidence.

Most shops were closed. This gave us a shock, as it would anybody, yet people appeared to have plenty to do. The trams were running and were crowded, but we could not talk and so went back home. Rachi was able to tell us at 4 o'clock that I could speak to Tchitcherin in Moscow at 8 o'clock, and so we waited in patience till that hour came round, and, after a few minutes’ talk on the telephone, it was decided that we should go right on to Moscow.