CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Amalgamated Clothing 
 Workers 
 
COBNELL UNIVEKSl" LIBMFIV 
 
 3 1924 050 895 709 
 
a Cornell University 
 y Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924050895709 
 
Ube 1Rew jgra Series 
 
 (VOLUME THREE) 
 
 WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA 
 
IN THE SAME SERIES 
 
 The following volumes will be published in 
 1920 
 
 NATIONALISATION OF THE MINES. 
 By Frank Hodges, J. P. (Secretary of the 
 Miners' Federation). 2nd Impression. 
 
 A NEW ARISTOCRACY OF COMRADE- 
 SHIP. By William Paine. 
 
 THE NEW LIBERALISM. By the Right 
 Hon. C. F. G. Masterman. 
 
 GUILD SOCIALISM (Restated). By G. D. 
 H. Cole, M.A. 
 
 AFTER THE PEACE. By H. N. Brails- 
 ford. 
 
 A POLICY FOR THE LABOUR PARTY. 
 By J. Ramsay MacDonald. 
 
 NATIONAL FINANCE AND THE 
 LABOUR PARTY. By Philip Snowden. 
 
 LAND NATIONALISATION. By A. Emil 
 Davies, L.C.C, and Dorothy Evans 
 (iormerly Organiser ol the Land Nationalisation 
 Society). 
 
 THE NEW LABOUR OUTLOOK. By 
 Robert Williams (Secretary oi the Transport 
 Workeis' Federation). 
 
 PUBLIC OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL 
 OF THE LIQUOR TRADE. By Arthur 
 Greenwood (Vice-President of the Workers' 
 Educational Association^. 
 
 DIRECT ACTION. By William Mellor 
 (Industrial Editor to Tlw Daily Herald). 
 
 Other volumes will he announced later. 
 
 Quarter cloth. Crown 8vo. Price 4/6 net each 
 volume 
 
 LEONARD PARSONS 
 
 PORTUGAL street, LONDON 
 
The abuve is a photograph of Commissar Koliko and his 
 
 wife, the first and last people I met in Soviet Russia, Both 
 
 ' sent love and greetings to British workers. 
 
WHAT I SAW IN 
 RUSSIA 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE LANSBURY 
 
 LONDON 
 
 LEONARD PARSONS 
 
 PORTUGAL STREET 
 
First Published June 1920 
 
 Leonard Parsons, Lid. 
 
2)e&icat{on 
 
 WITH FEELINGS OF GREAT RESPECT AND LOVE I DEDICATE THIS 
 LITTLE BOOK TO THE MEMORY OF MY BR0THEB8 AND SISTERS WHO 
 THROUGHOUT PAST AGES HAVE KEPT ALIVE THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 LOVE AND COMRADESHIP : OF THOSE SAINTS AND MARTYRS, OF ALL 
 THE CHURCHES AND NO CHURCHES, WHO LIVED AND DIED WITHOUT 
 SEEING A GLIMPSE OF THE DAWN OP A NEW DAY, BUT WHO, THROUGH 
 FAITH, REMAINED STEADFAST TO THE END. AND I DEDICATE IT, TOO, 
 TO MY COMRADES OF TO-DAY, ESPECIALLY THE YOUNG, WHO ARE 
 DESTINED TO SEE NOT ONLY THE DAWN BUT THE FULL NOONDAY 
 SUNSHINE OF THE NEW DAY. I WOULD SAY TO THESE LATTER : " BE 
 TRUE TO ONE ANOTHER, BE FAITHFUL IN SMALL AND GREAT THINGS, 
 CULTIVATE LOVE OF THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE GOOD, HATE DARKNESS 
 AND INIQUITY, BUT, IN HATING THINGS, KEEP YOUR MINDS FULL 
 OF LOVE FOR MEN AND WOMEN. REMEMBER ALWAYS THAT GOD AND 
 HUMANITY NEED YOU, AND THAT THE GREATEST, THE CLEVEREST 
 AMONGST YOU, ARE CALLED, BECAUSE OF THEIR TALENTS, TO BE THE 
 FOREMOST IN SERVING AND GIVING TO THE COMMONWEAL." 
 
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 hun- 
 dreds 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 per- 
 mission 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 
 
viii PEEFACE 
 
 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 under- 
 standing 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 "vises" 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 mys- 
 tery about my journey. I travelled like any 
 other newspaper man, saw everybody of im- 
 portance 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, understand- 
 ing 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. 
 
PEEPACE ix 
 
 During the whole nine weeks, except for 
 the short controversy in Copenhagen over 
 LitvinoflF's hotel, and for the unfortunate 
 escapade which ended in my arrest and im- 
 prisonment in a detention camp, called a 
 " Quarantine Station," in Finland, my re- 
 lationships 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 
 Secret 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 .Tames 
 O 'Grady went to Denmark to negotiate the 
 
PEEFACE 
 
 exchange of prisoners, the most important 
 member of his staff was one of the chief as- 
 sistants to Sir Basil Thomson — who, I sup- 
 pose, 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 work- 
 ing classes are arguing about the sort of Inter- 
 national they wish to establish, the Capitalist 
 Governments have created a new " Inter- 
 national " made up of spies and Agents 
 Provocateurs, and this in order to preserve 
 for the privileged few in all coimtries 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, 
 
PREFACE xi 
 
 Kropotkin, and thousands of others would 
 ha^e found no refuge in England or else- 
 where. 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 com- 
 mentary on this argument that many Govern- 
 ments carry on a persistent secret propaganda, 
 paid for out of secret serAice fimds 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 iise such funds and 
 secret power for blackmail and private re- 
 venge, 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 indi\'iduals and govern- 
 ments cruel beyond words. We hear a great 
 deal about Russian atrocities in prison. In 
 at least one of the Baltic States, I know for 
 
xii PEEFACE 
 
 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 hunger- 
 strike, 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 revolu- 
 tion 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 
 
PEEFACE xiii 
 
 of the revolution was to abolish for good and 
 aU 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 denun- 
 ciation : 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 if aces 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 diffi- 
 cult 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. 
 
xiv PREFACE 
 
 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, sym- 
 pathy 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 oppres- 
 sion 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 
 
PREFACE XV 
 
 but the powei" wliich economic forces bring 
 them. I disagree, and believe that, in spite 
 of their theories, in defiance of their creed, 
 they are actuated by purely moral and re- 
 ligious 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 sahation comes not from without, 
 but from within. Yet when I look at Eng- 
 land, I am not sure that if I had the power 
 I should at once abolish the police. And, 
 when I know that the o\'erwhelming 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 whicli 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 
 
xvi PREFACE 
 
 is there amongst the Churches and Govern- 
 ments of Europe and America that dare cast 
 the first stone at the Soviet Government of 
 Russia? 
 
 Above and over everything else w^e need to 
 understand that personal success is of no 
 account. The one and only thing that mat- 
 ters 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 disap- 
 pointed, 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 under- 
 stand 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, 
 
PSEFACE XYJi 
 
 Fraternit}'." Liberty is life, Equality is the 
 realisation that life for all is of value, Fra- 
 ternity is Love and Comradeship. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I FINLAND TO MOSCOW - 1 
 
 II LENIN AND OTHER LEADERS - 22 
 m LENIN, BOLSHEVISM AND RE- 
 LIGION - - - - 42 
 
 IV CO-OPERATION, TRADE AND BUSI- 
 NESS - 58 
 
 V TRADE UNIONS AND LABOUR OR- 
 GANIZATION - 69 
 
 VI CHILDREN AND EDUCATION 91 
 
 VH L,\AV AND ORDER . _ . 109 
 
 Vni PRISONERS ANT) CAPTIVES - - 121 
 
 LX ABOUT PEOPLE - - - - 134 
 
 X PUBLIC HEALTH - . - 145 
 
 XI MOSCOW TO LONDON - - - 156 
 
 APPENDIX - - - - 169 
 
WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 FINLAND TO MOSCOW 
 
 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 re- 
 member 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 win- 
 dows, Lansbury, and let in the pure free air 
 of Scotland." 
 
 Of course, I did so, but strange as it may 
 
WHAT I SAW IN EUSSIA 
 
 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 differ- 
 ence 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 occa- 
 sionally 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 Finnisli side of the little 
 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 
 
FINLAND TO MOSCOW 
 
 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 Thurs- 
 day, February 5th, at 5 o'clock, when we 
 crossed the river. The time had been spent 
 in 18 hours travelhng by train and, for the 
 remainder, in rushing from one police and 
 military headquarters to another, and finally 
 to the secret pohce, getting the necessary 
 vises to enable us to pass over. We were a 
 queer httle company gathered on the Finnish 
 side of the river ; chief amongst us was an 
 English ofiicer, cursing his ovm and every- 
 body else's luck because the " Reds " on the 
 other side, unaware of the Aalue of a British 
 officer's dignity and time, had kept him wait- 
 ing over four hours. Next in importance I 
 suppose was the chief of the Finnish Secret 
 Police. I am not sure as to his feelings to- 
 wards 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 lug- 
 gage from the station to the river, he volun- 
 teered the assistance of his men and did 
 everything in his power to make us under- 
 
WHAT I SAW IN EUSSIA 
 
 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 oflBcer 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 cre- 
 dential he could produce was his card of 
 membership of the Communist Party. Then 
 our turn came. I produced a letter of recom- 
 mendation from Litvinoff, and Barry pro- 
 duced a passport he had received a few weeks 
 before, but neither was of much use, as no 
 
FINLAND TO MOSCOW 
 
 one in authority on this frontier had received 
 instructions as to our coming. We were told, 
 however, that we could go across and en- 
 quiries 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 build- 
 ing, 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. 
 
WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA 
 
 After a short sledge ride, we arrived at the 
 house, and soon discovered we were an " in- 
 ternational " party. Between us there were 
 four different languages : Russian, French, 
 English, and Finnish. Somehow we made our- 
 selves understood to each other, and very soon 
 were all talking together. Words faU 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 mvirderers. 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 blood- 
 shed and slaughter. As I Ustened, 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 aUke. 
 It is only the few who are hateful and brutal. 
 People everywhere are much alike : in fact. 
 
FINLAND TO MOSCOW 
 
 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 kiUing than any of the rest of 
 us ; neither do revolutionists. It is the train- 
 ing 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 under- 
 standing. 
 
WHAT I SAW IN EUSSIA 
 
 Here in Russia conditions were different 
 from What they were at the British head- 
 quarters 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 head- 
 quarters at Petrograd until he could get word 
 from Moscow what to do vnth 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 
 
FINLAND TO .AlOSCOW 9 
 
 stories to tell of '" White " murders and ter- 
 rorism, 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 80,000 ; 
 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 for- 
 merly 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 \ery 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 arrny, especially among the 
 officers, knew very much about its aims and 
 objects ; now they were understanding better. 
 As for himself, he was a convinced com- 
 munist, and was very proud to be an officer 
 in Trotsky's army. 
 
10 WHAT I SAW IN EUSSIA 
 
 So far as I could judge, the relationships 
 between officers and men were extremely cor- 
 dial. 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 oc- 
 cupied 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 argu- 
 ments 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 
 
FINLAND TO MOSCOW 11 
 
 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 Bussia, 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 
 dri\e 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 e^■ery where 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 thi^ty-fi^•e years ago 
 I saw a very different scene when sailing up 
 the river to Brisbane in Australia : then the 
 glorious foliage and scener\\ ^vith little white 
 shanties dotted here and there, made the 
 whole 500 emigrants, of whom I was one. 
 
12 WHAT I SAW IN BUBSIA 
 
 imagine we were indeed entering the promised 
 land. And now I was seeing othfer 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 Hermit- 
 age 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- 
 
FINLAND TO MOSCOW 13 
 
 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 realh' are, not as they are 
 painted in the capitalist press as brutal mur- 
 derers and terrorist villains ! 
 
 AVe all got up prettj?^ 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 in- 
 terpreter. Barry, who knows Petrograd 
 thoroughly, went out and made a brave en- 
 deavour to find someone who could talk with 
 us, but it was no use ; we just walked about 
 where we could, looked at people, and mar- 
 velled at how well they seemed to be — and, 
 what is more, at how much acti\ity there 
 was in evidence. 
 
 Most shops were closed. This gave us a 
 shock, as it would anybody, yet people ap- 
 peared 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 tele- 
 phone, it was decided that we should go right 
 on to Moscow. 
 
 We left our friend Rachi and his family 
 with many thanks. They had been more than 
 
 3 
 
14 WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA 
 
 kind and hospitable. They treated us as 
 comrades and friends, sharing their food and 
 accommodation, and trying in every way to 
 make us comfortable. On the following morn- 
 ing we had to decide how to find an interpreter 
 to accompany us to Moscow — it is at least 
 a twenty-two hour journey. After some 
 discussion we thought of Emma Goldman 
 and Alexander Berkman, the well known 
 anarchists, who had been deported to Russia 
 by the American Government. We decided 
 to ask one or both of them to make the 
 journey with us. Alec Berkman agreed to 
 do so, and at mid-day we went off to the 
 station. It has been said by some friendly 
 and unfriendly critics that mine was an official 
 "personally conducted" tour, under very 
 pleasant and comfortable conditions. Well, 
 all I can say is that I am not able to remember 
 either comfort or pleasure in connection with 
 railway travelling in Russia ; and this, my first 
 long journey, was made pleasurable only by 
 the fact that Comrade Berkman accompanied 
 us, and that Emma Goldman and he supplied 
 us with some food they had brought from 
 America. 
 
 We had no pot or pan, cup, saucer or plate, 
 no knives or spoons ; we managed to borrow 
 a not quite clean kettle in which to get boiling 
 water and in which we made tea. We bor- 
 rowed a small tin mug, much the worse for 
 
FINLAND TO MOSCOW 15 
 
 wear, out of which to drink, all three of us 
 treating it as a sort of loving cup. We cut 
 up our food with my penknife. We occupied 
 a compartment made for two, so as I was 
 biggest and oldest I occupied the top berth 
 and Barry and Berkman the bottom, and 
 thus we travelled in great luxury and com- 
 fort ! 
 
 The journey was for me a succession of 
 experiences. First of all there were the 
 people on the train : workmen, peasants, 
 soldiers. Berkman was able to talk with many 
 of them, as he is a Russian. We heard 
 numerous grumblings and complaints, but no 
 word of support for coimter-re volution. At 
 the stations (and we stopped at every one 
 throughout the whole journey from Petro- 
 grad to Moscow) we were able to see peasant 
 men and women, boys and girls. It is strange 
 how, in every provincial district of every 
 country, people flock to the railway stations 
 to see the trains arrive and depart, Russia 
 is no exception to the rule. 
 
 As a portion of our journej'^ was on Sunday 
 morning, we were able now and then to catch 
 the sound of church bells, not like ours in 
 the English villages, but rather like fire alarms 
 in their clanging sort of monotone. Again 
 and again I found myself saying to my com- 
 panions : "Well, anyhow, these people are 
 very verv far from actual starvation." Away 
 
16 WHAT I SAW IN BUSSIA 
 
 from the towns I believe people are able to 
 live in much more comfort than in the towns. 
 Wood is easier to obtain. One little incident 
 reminded me of tales of my youth. At one 
 station I saw a man and woman washing with 
 snow. Not to be outdone I rushed out of 
 the train and did the same, much to the 
 amusement of my fellow passengers. 
 
 We arrived at Moscow at mid-day on Sun- 
 day. There was no one to meet us. As we had 
 no idea where to go, we decided to camp at 
 the station, and for over two hours we were 
 able to watch the people, to look around and 
 see the churches, and also to take a look at 
 the railway station opposite the one we came 
 in at. The first thing that struck us was the 
 great crowd of men, women and boys, shout- 
 ing and wrangling for the job of carrying our 
 luggage on small hand sledges. Here, if 
 anywhere, there should have been signs of 
 dejection, yet it would be quite wrong to 
 write of this as a crowd of physical or mental 
 wrecks. It is always a mystery to me how 
 such people live in London and other great 
 towns. Here in Moscow it seemed a much 
 greater mystery. I looked for signs of revo- 
 lution, of battle and murder, but saw none 
 — except that at the station opposite some 
 hundreds of "Red" army soldiers were 
 camped, waiting transportation to one or 
 other of the fighting fronts. Here we saw 
 
FINLAND TO MOSCOW 17 
 
 the first gruesome sight, which made both 
 Barry and myself ashamed of our nationahty. 
 Scores of wounded soldiers lay about in dif- 
 ferent parts of the station-building, waiting 
 their turn to be moved into hospitals already 
 dreadfully overcrowded. One man, with 
 terrible wovmds, said he had been waiting for 
 weeks for new bandages and treatment. The 
 British Government by its damnable blockade 
 has prevented even the medical necessaries 
 being sent in : our own soldier prisoners ha\e 
 suffered because of this barbarous conduct, 
 and tens of thousands of Russian soldiers have 
 died in agony because no doctor had the means 
 of alleviating their suffering and misery. As 
 I looked at these poor suffering men, I won- 
 dered what sort of row the Jingo press would 
 ha^•e set up had the Germans committed such 
 a dastardly act as this, and I also wondered 
 what had become of the international Red 
 Cross. I think, before any of us gi\e another 
 penny to such organisations, we should first 
 of all require an undertaking that the Red 
 Cross societies will put all their resources at 
 the service of all who need them, whether in 
 time of civil or of racial wars. 
 
 We were able to inspect some \ery fine 
 drawings and pictures painted on the interior 
 walls of the stations, though here, as e\ery- 
 where, it was inspection of people that in- 
 terested me most. I had been warned before 
 
18 WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA 
 
 entering Russia to beware of crowds ; to look 
 out for lice, bugs and fleas ; to remember that 
 in railway carriages disease was always to be 
 found. I had travelled twenty-two hours with 
 a carriageful of people, and for two hours had 
 gone in and out amongst lots more. I had 
 seen no diseased person. The only sick I came 
 across were wounded soldiers, and, as for the 
 above-mentioned insect scavengers, I never 
 saw one the whole twenty-five days I was in 
 Russia. It will be no use for expert people 
 to say trains were specially prepared for me : 
 they were not, except on the one occasion 
 when a third class compartment was set aside 
 to allow a party of us to visit Kropotkin 
 (an occasion about which I shall speak else- 
 where). I went about in an ordinary manner, 
 and can only testify as to what happened to 
 me. 
 
 Our waiting time ended about 3.30, when 
 Comrade Rosenberg, one of the chief officials 
 at the Foreign Office, came with a motor and 
 took Barry and me to our future home. As 
 in Petrograd, the drive was just like a moving 
 picture. The roads, however, were very bad 
 indeed. During the whole of my stay in 
 Moscow I could not overcome the feeling of 
 nervous dread every time I entered a motor. 
 The drivers were all " Red " army men, quite 
 fearless, and they drove always as if for dear 
 life, risking their own and their passengers' 
 
FINLAND TO MOSCOW 19 
 
 lives and the lives of all pedestrians within 
 fifty yards of their cars. 
 
 For all this, the glory of Moscow's won- 
 derful buildings and towers glittering in the 
 golden sunlight could not be lost on me. 
 When we reached the entrance to the Krem- 
 lin, it seemed for a moment like another world 
 — but only for a moment. The men and 
 women at the famous shrine soon appeared 
 hke the rest. Yet somehow, as we went under 
 the arch and saw on one side the famous en- 
 trance to a kind of inner city of palaces, and 
 were reminded that for centuries before the 
 revolution no one had gone under the arch- 
 way entrance without taking off his headgear, 
 it did seem as if we had entered into a world 
 centuries old. This also passed away, for we 
 were informed that now almost everyone goes 
 through with covered head. After all, this 
 archway is only the shell of religion, not re- 
 Ugion itself, which always nuist be a matter 
 of life and action. A httle farther on is the 
 stand on which, in the brutal days of the 
 Czars, men and women were publicly flogged 
 and scourged with the knout by the brutal 
 hirelings of the autocracy. 
 
 We also passed the famous church or shrine 
 erected by Boris Goudonov, and on down a 
 rather narrow business street to the Moskva 
 river. Crossing to the south side, we drove 
 along the embankment to a mrmsion formerly 
 
20 WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA 
 
 inhabited by a rich merchant. During the 
 early days of the war this house was occupied 
 by the French miUtary mission : since the 
 revolution it has been used as a Soviet guest 
 house. Many newspaper men have been 
 lodged here. It is a finely built house and 
 very nicely planned with all modern con- 
 veniences, but hideously decorated. The 
 furniture is what it usually is in rich mer- 
 chants' houses everywhere ; but, as I am not 
 an artist, I found my room very comfortable 
 indeed. There were other newspaper men 
 living here : we were all waited on by an old 
 retainer of the family (the family was in exile). 
 He did everything possible to make our food 
 agreeable. It was rather pathetic to find this 
 old servant worrying himself because he could 
 not feed us as he had been accustomed to feed 
 his master's guests in days long ago. 
 
 I may as well state here what our meals con- 
 sisted of. At 9.30 we had breakfast — three 
 slices of black bread, a little butter or sub- 
 stitute, a little cheese, and two glasses of 
 tea with no milk ; at 5.30 or earlier, our 
 chief meal — soup, generally two platefuls each 
 (this was usually made with vegetables, though 
 sometimes it was made from water that fish 
 had been boiled in, and occasionally some 
 meat would appear to have had a look in), 
 cusha (I think this is the correct word : it is 
 a kind of rice or birdseed, boiled with fish 
 
FINLAND TO MOSCOW 21 
 
 and occasionally with meat), bread, and two 
 glasses of tea. At bedtime, usually about 11 
 or 12.30, sometimes later, we had supper — 
 cusha boiled in fat, bread, jam and sometimes 
 cheese and tea. On several occasions we had 
 potatoes. After George Copping came to 
 live with us we helped him eat up some bacon 
 he had brought from Esthonia, and also some 
 eggs, which I very much fear cost him a small 
 fortune. 
 
 Because I was old and also because I was 
 a little ill, I was given heat for my room : 
 otherwise the house was always very cold, 
 and I think all of us were ready for extra 
 food, although I honestly believe we fared 
 better than members of the Government. In 
 any case I am sure we fared better than our 
 friend Rosenberg, with whom on one occa- 
 sion I had a meal. 
 
 Rosenberg fixed our appointments and in- 
 terviews, and in a thousand ways was very 
 helpful; and I am glad to record my very 
 grateful thanks for his assistance from start 
 to finish of my visit. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 LENIN AND OTHER LEADERS 
 
 During my not short life I have met dis- 
 tinguished people in all parts of the world. In 
 our own country the late King Edward took 
 part in a meeting of a Royal Commission be- 
 fore which I was a witness. At the close of 
 my evidence, together with a number of 
 other people, I talked and lunched with him. 
 I have also interviewed President Wilson, 
 Colonel House, and most of the leading states- 
 men who have been in and out of office in this 
 country during the past dozen years ; I 
 have met Church dignitaries, trade union 
 officials, men and women connected with both 
 large and small businesses, and amongst them 
 all I class none on the same footing of far- 
 reaching ability, downright straightforward- 
 ness and whole-hearted enthusiasm and devo- 
 tion to the cause of humanity with Nicolai 
 Lenin or Vladimir Ulianov — which is his real 
 name. 
 
 Lenin celebrated his fiftieth birthday this 
 
LENIN AND OTHER LEADERS 23 
 
 year, on the 10th April— the 23rd by our 
 calendar. ITe was born in Simbirsk in the 
 Volga region. His father was by origin a 
 peasant. His mother came of the same stock. 
 Consequently Lenin is a pure born Russian. 
 His family were alwaj^s on the side of the revo- 
 lution, his brother Alexander being executed 
 in 1887 by order of Alexander II. Lenin 
 attended the university of Kazan, but was ex- 
 pelled for taking part in a students' demonstra- 
 tion. In spite of this he took his degree. 
 
 In 1890 he was exiled to Siberia and then 
 went to Geneva, where he spent a great deal 
 of time in the libraries studying Marx and the 
 literature of the revolution. 
 
 It is often stated that his wife and he live 
 apart. This is one of those falselioods which it 
 has suited the enemies of socialism to perpetrate 
 against one of the most high-souled men that 
 ever led a popular movement. Nadiezda 
 Krupskaya-LHianova, wife of Lenin, has 
 always been his most active helper both in the 
 secret and public organisation of Russian 
 socialism and she is still his most ardent helper 
 and friend. 
 
 During the war he was acti\e at Zimmer- 
 wald and at the Kienthal Conferences. He 
 has always opposed pure pacifism and has 
 taken the stand that the sociahsts' reply to 
 war was revolution. I met him on the day of 
 my 61st birthday. I found him in a quite 
 
24 WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA 
 
 plain room in one of the big palaces of the 
 Kremlin : no flunkies announced my arrival, 
 and although soldiers guarded the outer 
 entrances to the palace, his rooms were quite 
 unguarded. There were groups of women 
 clerks working away on typewriting machines, 
 but an absolute lack of ostentation of any sort 
 or kind pervaded the building. I contrasted 
 the sort of study in which I found him with 
 that used by cabinet ministers in this or any 
 other country. Here I was face to face with 
 the man who was centre of the greatest 
 revolution in the history of the world, foremost 
 leader in the re-organisation and rebuilding of 
 the life of a nation comprising over 100 million 
 human beings, beset on all sides by open 
 enemies and false friends, attempting to build 
 up life for a nation as the children of Israel 
 centuries ago attempted to make bricks with- 
 out straw. It was hard to realise that this was 
 the man who was carrying on his shoulders the 
 tremendous burden which a starving, disease 
 stricken nation imposed. 
 
 When I saw him he had just recovered from 
 a serious illness, and yet he was cheerful and 
 apparently vigorous ; not for one moment did 
 conversation on his side flag, nor for an instant 
 did he hesitate to answer the most direct, 
 clear-cut questions in a straightforward, honest 
 manner. Cabinet Ministers in other countries 
 would have talked of their troubles, of their 
 
LENIN AND OTHER LEADEES 25 
 
 diflSculties, would have surrounded themselves 
 with a group of officials to prevent the possi- 
 bility of any mistake in their answering of 
 questions : but Lenin takes the field alone, and 
 this because he is not a diplomat — that is, he 
 does not use language of a double meaning 
 but wants you to understand what he means. 
 He hates compromise. He will not accept the 
 pacifist view of life because he believes that the 
 possessing classes will inevitably compel the 
 workers to fight. He emphasised this again 
 and again : " You and the workers may not 
 want to fight but the capitalist class will make 
 you fight : they will never concede to reason 
 what they will be obliged to concede to force." 
 As I watched him I wondered what was the 
 soiu-ce of his strength, because there was 
 strength written all over him, mental and 
 moral strength came with every, word he 
 spoke. He was anxious that I should not call 
 him an agnostic but an atheist ; that I should 
 be quite certain of what his view was of 
 religion. He defended the position by calling 
 attention to the chloroforming influence which 
 organised religion had exercised over the lives 
 of the masses of the workers, not only in 
 Russia but everywhere else. 
 
 I believe his strength comes because he is 
 absolutely impersonal. He is the best hated 
 and the best loved man in the world, but I 
 believe he is absolutely indifferent both to love 
 
26 WHAT I SAW IN BUSSIA 
 
 and hatred. — I do not mean that he has no 
 feehng, because I am confident that he loves 
 Httle children, but in the pursuit of the cause 
 of socialism he cannot be thwarted or turned 
 one side or the other by personal considera- 
 tions of any kind. He would go to the scaffold 
 as calmly as to a meeting of his cabinet. He 
 is not the " boss " of Russia, but he is the in- 
 spiring spirit of Russia. If there is such a 
 thing embodied in humanity as the spirit of 
 religion, then Lenin has got it to a larger 
 extent than any other man I have met. 
 
 Sadoul likens him to "St. Ignatius Loyola," 
 founder of the " Society of Jesus," because he 
 has founded the communist order within which 
 men and women must vow to serve only the 
 commonweal, must have no personal am- 
 bitions, must live Only for the nation — and 
 Lenin himself does this and thus becomes their 
 leader. He is a doer of the word, not a mere 
 talker. While talking with him it was impos- 
 sible to imagine that such a man would l(Jve or 
 care for violence or butchery, torture or any 
 of the other horrors which are laid to his 
 charge. He is too big in his outlook and 
 much too wide in his sympathies to want to 
 kill anyone. The thing, however, that causes 
 his great determination is the fact that he has 
 travelled, not merely in Russia but throughout 
 the world, and understands theoretically and 
 practically what a cursed thing capitalism can 
 
be ; he has suffered with the workers, and to 
 suffer together is the cement of human friend- 
 ship — he understands these things. Like the 
 saints of old, he has devoted his whole life to 
 the destruction of capitalism, which he believes 
 is the most a^^'ful cancer in the life of 
 humanity. Those who would be his friends 
 must be as pure hearted as he : he has no room 
 for any of us who are half and half, he wants 
 us to be one thing or the other. He does not 
 imderstand patriotic socialism. He does 
 understand the pacifist attitude although he 
 does not agree ^^'ith it, but he will have noth- 
 ing to do with those socialists who cry out for 
 the defence of the fatherland, because the 
 fatherland to him is the world. He typifies in 
 my judgment, a living expression of the say- 
 ing of Tom Paine : " The world is my 
 country' , to do good is my religion, all man- 
 kind are my brethren." Thus he \\'ill take no 
 part and expects other Socialists to take no 
 part in the wars waged by capitalism. It is his 
 enthusiasm and his words which have made 
 soldiers in the Red army realise that in fight- 
 ing, they are fighting not for Russia but for 
 all himianity. 
 
 I repeat it is strange to me to think of him 
 as having no religion, because his whole life 
 seems to be that of one of the saints of old. 
 Whatever may happen to him in the days to 
 come he will be enshrined in the heart of all 
 
28 WHAT I SAW IN BUS SI A 
 
 Socialists worthy of the name throughout the 
 length and breath of the world; and this for 
 his own sake, and also because of the tre- 
 mendous service he has rendered to the com- 
 mon people. It is extraordinary to find that 
 most of his bitter enemies in the Church, 
 and amongst the classes whom his policy has 
 ruined so far as material wealth goes, speak 
 well of this Russian. It is only outside Russia 
 that filth is thrown at him and lying calumnies 
 printed about him. For Lenin has proved him- 
 self a great impersonal soldier and leader in 
 the one cause worth living, and if needs be, 
 dying for — the establishment of the Inter- 
 national by the replacement of capitalism by 
 socialism. 
 
 Before the revolution the Czars were known 
 as the " little fathers of the Russian people." 
 To-day I^enin is symbolic of a new spirit. He 
 is in very deed a father of his people — a father 
 who toils for them, thinks for them, acts for 
 them, suffers with them, and is ready to stand 
 in danger or in safety struggling on their be- 
 half. Tens of thousands of men and women 
 love him and would die for him because he is 
 their comrade, their champion in the cause of 
 social and economic freedom. 
 
 A few days later I travelled sixty versts out 
 of Moscow to meet Peter Kropotkin and his 
 wife. They are old friends and I found them 
 in a comfortable house in a rather nice little 
 
LENIN AND OTHER LEA DEBS 29 
 
 village, looking to me very picturesque with 
 its quaint wooden houses covered with snow 
 and ice. The house they live in is one which 
 has become vacant because the previous owner 
 has left the country. As everywhere the 
 people in this village were hungry, but not 
 so hungry as the people in Moscow. Kropot- 
 kin, his wife and daughter have suffered as 
 much as most people owing to the shortage of 
 food : I think also they miss the company of 
 friends, and from their conversation I gathered 
 that they found themselves rather apart from 
 things that are going on. 
 
 Kropotkin and Madame Kropotkin are both 
 very scornful and condemnatory of the Soviet 
 Government and all its methods. They 
 think of it as a class government and as 
 tyranny. I believe they take no part in the 
 organisation of life at all. Listening to them, 
 it seemed to me a tragedy that after all the 
 years of toil and stress, this brave, confident 
 fighter on behalf of truth should find himself, 
 in the midst of the revolution which he had 
 done so much to help bring about, a compara- 
 tive stranger, or at least unable to take part in 
 its organising work. I am doubtful though if 
 any elected government would have really 
 satisfied our comrade. He is a philosophical 
 anarchist and hates authority. He seems quite 
 confident that the Russian nation will win its 
 salvation, if only the outside world will leave 
 
 4 
 
30 WHAT I SAW IN BUSSIA 
 
 it alone. He has no patience with the policy 
 of intervention ; in fact, he declares it is 
 intervention which has brought his country to 
 the plight in which it now is. 
 
 One morning, almost before I was up, I had 
 a visit from Vladimir Chertkoflf and his son. 
 People who are interested in the work of the 
 Society of Friends of Russian Freedom will re- 
 member the long years that Chertkoff lived in 
 this country at Tuckton House near Christ- 
 church. He is a Tolstoy an and I found talk- 
 ing to him, or rather listening to him talking, 
 with his son joining in occasionally, one of 
 the most interesting of the interviews that 
 took place between myself and Russians. 
 
 They are typical Tolstoyans in that they 
 believe no evil and try to think good of all men. 
 They are distressed because of the horrors and 
 violence which has accompanied the revolu- 
 tion. They would have preferred that the co- 
 operative movement had remained a voluntary 
 organisation apart from the Government. 
 They think there is too much discipline, too 
 much organisation, but both are absolutely 
 loyal to the Government. They recognise the 
 difficulties which beset Lenin and his col- 
 leagues ; they understand, too, the terrible 
 difficulties which the revolution has created ; 
 both believe that the present Government 
 and all its machinery of compulsion is only a 
 passing stage. 
 
LENIN AND OTHER LEADEBS 31 
 
 I asked Chertkoff himself what he would do 
 if he now had power. I also put the same 
 question to Kropotkin. Kropotkin answered 
 that possibly nothing else could be done but 
 was being done : he did not seem quite sure. 
 But Chertkoff, who is really a disciple of 
 Tolstoy in addition to being his literary 
 executor, never hesitated for a moment : "I 
 would abolish the whole Government ; police, 
 soldiers, and everything else in the form of 
 State organisation, and let the people go back 
 to a simpler and a more natural form of life." 
 I said " Yes, but they would kill one another." 
 He replied : " They may do so, but it will not 
 matter very much compared with present con- 
 ditions where they are being killed daily, not 
 only here but all over the world." It was a 
 great experience to find a man who was quite 
 willing to face all that may be involved in the 
 complete abolition of government with its 
 machinery and organisation. And this Chert- 
 koff did, and was quite prepared for all that 
 such abolition involved. 
 
 I should think there is no country in the 
 world that has produced thinkers so varied on 
 moral and spiritual things as Russia, and the 
 revolution, instead of wiping this out, has 
 really kept it alive. This comrade lectures all 
 over the country : in addition he is one of the 
 Tribunal which has been set up to deal with 
 conscientious objectors to military service. In 
 
32 WHAT I SAW IN BUSSIA 
 
 putting him, and men like him on such Tri- 
 bunals, Lenin and his colleagues have shown 
 themselves much more liberal minded than the 
 authorities in England, for as far as I am 
 aware no member of the Society of Friends 
 who was a pacifist was allowed to sit on a Tri- 
 bunal anywhere in this country. 
 
 Chertkoff Junior is one of the leading men 
 in the Co-operative movement and spends a 
 good deal of his time in the work of education 
 and organisation. The little paper which 
 he is responsible for producing is one of the 
 very few influential papers allowed to be 
 printed. I think it appears fortnightly or 
 monthly. 
 
 I must add a word here that Chertkoff and 
 his Tolstoyan friends are much more active than 
 ever before. They have freedom now, where- 
 as under the Czar they were not allowed to 
 propagate their ideas. They believe that 
 Tolstoy's views of life will even yet prevail in 
 Russia : they look for a great spiritual renais- 
 sance and think that out of Russia a new 
 Messiah will come — not with a new gospel but 
 with the old gospel adapted for modern life. 
 I may as well point out here to those who say 
 Lfcnin and his colleagues are intolerant of re- 
 ligion, that under the Czar the Salvation Army 
 was hardly tolerated in Russia and all un- 
 orthodox sects were rigidly suppressed ! 
 
 As he stood in my room, I thought of 
 
LENIN AND OTHEB LEADEBS 33 
 
 Chertkoff as one of the prophets of old ; he 
 was so full of faith, so fiill of hope and so con- 
 fident of the truth of the message he has to 
 deliver. It was an inspiration to meet him, 
 and it was fine to know that in Russia, and 
 especially in Moscow, in the centre of what 
 has been called a material revolution, there 
 was yet room for such men and their message 
 to the world. 
 
 Captain Sadoul, the French Socialist mem- 
 ber of Parliament, who is under sentence of 
 death in his own country for having joined the 
 Bolsheviks and at the same time exposing the 
 humbug and hypocrisy of the policy of the 
 Allied Governments towards the Soviet 
 Government, is I should think a man of about 
 thirty-five years of age. When I visited him 
 he waij in bed, having met with an accident 
 which had severely damaged his knee-cap. I 
 found him one of the brightest and most 
 genial of the personages I met in Moscow. 
 Although he had suffered a good deal and was 
 not likely to be fit for some days he was full of 
 cheerfulness, and talked away of the future in 
 the most optimistic manner. For him, like 
 so many others, there is only one coimtry and 
 that is the world ; there is but one nation and 
 that is humanity. 
 
 I asked him about his relationships with 
 Longuet. He thinks of our French comrade 
 as a good man weakly struggling Avith adver- 
 
34 WHAT I SAW IN BUSSIA 
 
 sity. There is no doubt about it, these Bol- 
 sheviks want whole-hearted friends : they 
 accept no half-hearted service from anyone. 
 They are entitled to this because they them- 
 selves are not half-hearted. They do not 
 believe in giving lip service to a cause, and 
 especially the cause of the International. He 
 would hear nothing of the Second Inter- 
 national or of any other except the Moscow 
 Third International. He told us many stories 
 of his adventures and of the manner in which 
 French and English officers and troops had 
 been used to try and pull down the Soviet 
 Government. 
 
 Here again was a man who professed 
 precious little religious belief, but he had a 
 great faith. To him the British Labour Move- 
 ment was a great force. He rather wavered on 
 the question of the necessity of violence in this 
 country, agreeing that our forms and our de- 
 velopments were different from those of other 
 countries. But all the same, like everyone 
 else I spoke to, he came back to the old point 
 that experience up to the present had shown 
 that the governing classes had not yet given 
 way on any essential matter and it was very 
 doubtful if they would do so without a violent 
 upheaval. 
 
 I want to put on record what a lovable per- 
 sonality this man is, the tenderness with which 
 he looks out on life. In this respect he is a 
 
LENIN AND OTHEB LEADEB8 35 
 
 true soldier — ^that is he looks on killing, not 
 as a profession but as a horrible necessity. 
 When I asked him about atrocities he just 
 poured scorn on the whole thing ; made no 
 sort of exception or apology, because for him 
 atrocities do not exist as far as the Govern- 
 ment and the officials controlled by the 
 Government are concerned. 
 
 During my stay he left Moscow for the 
 Polish front, and I expect is now down 
 there helping either to make peace or carry 
 on the war on behalf of Russia. He is but 
 one of the many, many thousands who have 
 gone to Russia, called there by the spirit 
 of the revolution, to take part in the struggle 
 on behalf of internationalism. 
 
 I have only space to deal quite briefly with 
 two or three other men that I met. I want 
 to say a word about one whom I just missed — 
 Michael Ivanovitch Kalinin, the President of 
 the Central Executive Committee of the All 
 Russian Soviet Congress. He was born in 1875 
 and comes of a peasant family and is a pure 
 Russian. From his very earliest days his life 
 was one of hard work. He had to help his 
 father from his very earliest childhood, but like 
 so many other boys in Russia, he taught him- 
 self to read. A neighbouring landowner, 
 when the boy was thirteen, paid the cost of 
 sending him to school. He then went to work 
 on the estate, but very soon migrated to Petro- 
 
36 WHAT I SAW IN BUS SI A 
 
 grad and worked as a turner in the Putiloff 
 works. In 1898 he joined the Social Demo- 
 cratic Party. A year later he was arrested 
 and exiled. I^ater he was allowed to return 
 to Reval, but he was not there long before he 
 was again arrested and exiled to Siberia. He 
 is married and has a wife and three children 
 and a sixty-year-old mother who lives in the 
 village where he was born, managing a farm. 
 
 He reckons that his chief work as President 
 of the Executive Committee is to awaken the 
 peasants and especially the middle class 
 peasantry. He wants to bring the villages and 
 towns into closer contact and establish better 
 relationships between the one and the other. 
 He considers his election as President of the 
 Executive Committee proves that the Bol- 
 sheviks are anxious to unite the peasants and 
 workers in one solid organisation. When 
 asked one day " What do you expect from the 
 future?" his reply was: "I am an incor- 
 rigible optimist : I am sure we will overcome 
 all misfortunes. I am going a tour of the 
 villages and small towns and I am sure that 
 we shall come to an understanding with each 
 other." He has a special train in which he 
 travels from one part of the country to 
 another. He speaks quite simply, sometimes 
 to a crowd of children and on other occasions 
 to huge crowds of workmen. 
 
 He takes his position as President, not as 
 
LENIN AND OTHER LEADERS 37 
 
 an ornamental one, but as one involving down- 
 right hard work on behalf of the people. It is 
 said that when his train arrives at a A'illage, the 
 peasants, men, women, and children pour out 
 to meet him. They tell him their grievances, 
 ask for his assistance, and invariably get the 
 reply, not that " I will see to it," but the 
 Soviet Government must deal with these 
 things. Kalinin is showing us what a true 
 leader of people should be like. He is both 
 servant, inspirer and peace-maker. 
 
 Amongst the others that I met was 
 Tchitcherin, the Foreign Minister, whom 
 many people in this coimtry know quite well. 
 He comes of a family of nobles who have 
 served for years in the Moscow Foreign Office. 
 I saw him \ery often because I sent out a 
 wireless message every night and it was 
 important to see him in connection with this. 
 He is as hard-working as ever, but curiously 
 enough only works at night — from four in the 
 afternoon to eight o'clock in the morning. 
 Like all the rest of the chiefs in Moscow he 
 works in an overcoat and muffler, because 
 there is no fuel with which to heat his room. 
 
 Talking to him of foreign relationships is so 
 different from talking to the Ministers of other 
 nations; the one idea of Tchitcherin is for 
 peace and disarmament. One thing he said to 
 me which I shall always remember is this : 
 " What is the use of frontiers? Why do we 
 
38 WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA 
 
 want to bother about strategic points? We 
 have no quarrel with the Fins or the Letts or 
 with the Poles. All we want is to live at 
 peace with all nations. We must do business 
 with them and they with us, we do not need 
 armaments unless we want to rob each other, 
 and Soviet Russia wishes to rob nobody but 
 only to hve out her own life." 
 
 liunacharsky, the Education Minister, is 
 M'ell known throughout the world as one of the 
 leading educationalists. Given the chance, 
 Russia, I am sure, is going to show us how to 
 educate and train children, but it will take 
 many years to get her system going. Our 
 comrade has evolved his new system from 
 nothing. Most of the educationalists who 
 served under the Czar ran away or stayed to 
 sabotage. He is definitely showing that it is 
 possible to create an organisation, even in the 
 midst of war and revolution, and in spite of 
 the hostility of those who should teach. Dur- 
 ing my interview he was surrounded, by his 
 children. I ought to add he is not only 
 Education Minister ; he is also in charge of all 
 historic buildings, churches and palaces in 
 Russia, and it is to him we owe the fact that 
 all these are to be preserved and kept up by 
 the nation. He is no " iconoclast " ; he thinks 
 the past has lots to teach us and that we must 
 hand on knowledge unimpaired and amplified 
 to our children. 
 
LENIN AND OTHEE LEADERS 39 
 
 Zinovieff, who is head of the Petrograd 
 Soviet and also Chairman of the Executive 
 Committee of the Third International, is 
 probablj' the most influential man in Russia, 
 outside Lenin and Trotsky. I should think he 
 was broader and more tolerant than some of 
 his colleagues ; also he appears to me to be 
 the youngest of them all. On one thing he is 
 very definite and that is the Third Inter- 
 national. Talking to him, there seems little 
 chance of compromise, but I did not gather 
 from him or from any of the others, that a per- 
 son like myself, who is opposed to the use of 
 violence, would be excluded from member- 
 ship. 
 
 The organisation of social life in Petrograd 
 appears to me to be better done than in 
 Moscow. Certainly the trams were running 
 and the organisation of food suppHes seemed 
 to be better. This is not surprising, Petrograd 
 is a more modern town and has a more modern 
 and industrial popidation. I simply do not 
 believe any of the stories of wholesale destruc- 
 tion of art treasures and machinery ; no doubt 
 there was some destruction and vandalism 
 when the revolution broke out, but to nothing 
 Hke the extent the enemies of Socialism would 
 have us believe. 
 
 Kameneff, Chairman of the Moscow Soviet, 
 I met one Saturday afternoon by invitation at 
 a meeting of what I should call the Moscow 
 
40 WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA 
 
 Town Council. He is a very capable chair- 
 man and gave me a very cordial w^elcome to the 
 meeting. The members were made up of 
 workers and soldiers ; some women and one or 
 two soldiers were present. About six or seven 
 hundred members were in attendance, most of 
 whom were men who had just left work. 
 Kameneff conducted the business in much the 
 same manner as I conduct the business of the 
 Poplar Borough Council or Cyril Cobb con- 
 ducts the business of the County Council. It 
 is a queer thing to think of the Soviets as some- 
 thing ordinary and commonplace, and yet of 
 course they are. They are just gatherings of 
 men and women who talk or parley. I tried 
 to make KameneflP understand that this was 
 what I was thinking, as he was putting 
 through report after report from the various 
 commissars of Public Health, Education, Food 
 Control, Co-operation, etc. 
 
 Of Krassin, Nogin, Radek, and others it is 
 not necessary to speak here except to say that 
 all of them appeared to me always to be 
 busy, always working with no time for leisure 
 or pleasure of any kind. 
 
 I also met a good many women who occupy 
 various positions. Chief amongst these was 
 Madame KoUontai and Madame Balabanoff, 
 both of whom I had known a good deal about 
 before going to Russia. Madame KoUontai 
 devotes almost all her time to work amongst 
 
LENIN AND OTHEK LEADERS 41 
 
 women and has achieved considerable success 
 in bringing Russian women into the work of 
 administration. She and Madame Balabanoff 
 both consider that women in Russia are more 
 free than anywhere else in the world. The 
 Secretary of the Moscow Soviet is a woman. 
 It was my very bad luck to miss Trotsky. He 
 left Moscow the day before I arrived. My 
 colleague Griffin Barry interviewed him a few 
 weeks previously. If Lenin is the soul of the 
 revolution Trotsky is the living embodiment of 
 the revolution at work. He is the organiser of 
 victory in the field and he will be the organiser 
 of victory in field, factory and workshop. It 
 is his iron will and determination which will 
 never acknowledge defeat either on the bloody 
 or bloodless front. When he and Lenin speak 
 at a congress or demonstration they are 
 listened to as representing two necessary sides 
 of the revolution, enthusiasm and constructive 
 work. He is the one outstanding Jew in the 
 world to-day in Russia ; he is as Carnot was to 
 the French revolution, organiser of victory 
 over enemies at home and abroad, but, unhke 
 Carnot, he is now organising a triumph in the 
 sphere of Labour, and it is this which will 
 stamp him as one of the greatest leaders of 
 men. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 LENIN, BOLSHEVISM AND RELIGION 
 
 Lenin is one of the most realistic men I have 
 ever met : he speaks straight out, quite indif- 
 ferent to the effect his views may have on his 
 hearers. Talking to me about religion he 
 said : " Do not class me as an agnostic, I am 
 an atheist." I smiled and replied: "Very 
 well, as you please : to me your idea of life is 
 only the Christian way of living. ' ' He believes 
 superstition and the worship of what is called 
 the unknowable is responsible for keeping 
 people in ignorance and contentment. Out- 
 side the Kremlin, on a wall facing the most 
 sacred shrine in all Russia, the following in- 
 dictment of religion is written : " Religion is 
 the opium of the people." This one act of 
 the Soviet Government has earned for it the 
 most severe condemnation from all sorts and 
 conditions of people. Tolstoyans and other 
 dissenting bodies think the statement much 
 
 4a 
 
LENIN, BOLSHEVISM AND RELIGION 43 
 
 too sweeping, though all agree it is a true 
 statement if organised religion alone is 
 brought within the scope of its condemnation. 
 To those who still adhere to the orthodox 
 Church, the statement is of course rank blas- 
 phemy. 
 
 One of my chief desires in going to Russia 
 was to discover how much truth there was in 
 the statements that the Bolsheviks had 
 abolished the Church and destroyed religion. 
 I tried to see the Patriarch Tikon, head of the 
 Russian Chiu-ch, as I hoped to get a message 
 over his own signature for the Archbishop of 
 Canterbviry and other dignatories of religion 
 in this country, but His Eminence refused to 
 see me, pleading he was living under domestic 
 arrest. 
 
 I called at his house and could find no sign 
 of imprisonment, no soldiers or police, and 
 afterwards discovered that domestic arrest 
 means that the Patriarch must give the Soviet 
 authorities notice whenever he attends a con- 
 ference or addresses public meetings. He is 
 perfectly free to hold services and preach ser- 
 mons, as often as he desires. The limitation 
 on his activities re meetings is due to the fact, 
 which is beyond disproof, that some bishops 
 and priests have used their high office to under- 
 mine the authority of the Government. The 
 secretary of the Patriarch was good enough to 
 give me an introduction to a leading priest in 
 
44 WHAT I SAW IN BUSSIA 
 
 Moscow who could speak English. I found 
 him not so much angry as hurt. He seemed 
 to feel humiliated that it should be possible for 
 anyone to think of religion as opium for the 
 people. So far as he was able to judge, the 
 men responsible for the statement — ^that is, 
 men like Lenin, Trotsky, Lunacharsky and 
 others — ^were all honourable, clean living, 
 decent men, alienated from the Church in 
 what to him seemed quite an inconceivable 
 manner. Yet as we talked on, he himself 
 touched the core of the whole matter, when 
 with tears in his voice he admitted that in the 
 days of the Czar the Church was nothing more 
 than the handmaiden of autocracy and tyranny 
 of the worst description. She had failed in her 
 mission because she had been tied hand and 
 foot to the powers of the State, never daring 
 to raise a voice of protest against the infamies 
 of Siberia or the terrorist methods associated 
 with the dungeons of the fortress of Peter and 
 Paul. Now was the day of travail and sorrow 
 both for Russia and the Church. Perhaps 
 what there was of true religion would now be 
 able to find better expression because the 
 Church, no longer tied to Governments, could 
 with freedom deliver her message of peace and 
 brotherhood. 
 
 This priest was one of the sanest, fairest 
 critics of the Government. When I asked 
 him, " Are you quite free to carry on the work 
 
LENIN, BOLSHEVISM AND BELIGION 45 
 
 of the Church?" he rephed without the 
 sUghtest hesitation, "Yes." When I asked 
 if the Government had persecuted and killed 
 priests, he hesitated, and finally replied that 
 he did not think the Government desired 
 either the persecution or murder of priests, 
 but there had been both. At the same time 
 whenever any case was brought to the notice 
 of the Government steps were immediately 
 taken to bring those responsible to book. He 
 was quite emphatic that Lenin and his col- 
 leagues, in spite of their own theories about 
 religion, did desire that everybody should have 
 perfect freedom of conscience and the right to 
 follow whatever creed they chose. This fact 
 is borne out by what can be seen at all hours 
 of the day in the streets of all the towns and 
 villages. The churches are open, people go in 
 and out by the score, and on Sundays by the 
 hundreds. In addition, individual men and 
 women stop to cross themselves and pray out- 
 side the innumerable churches to be found 
 everywhere. In these circumstances it is ex- 
 traordinary to me that any Christian people 
 should be worried about the position of the 
 Church in Russia. She has perfect freedom to 
 preach her gospel, conduct her services, and 
 worship God in her own way. 
 
 The real thing that is wrong from the official 
 standpoint, is not that the Government is 
 what it is — ^frankly materialist — but that the 
 
 S 
 
46 WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA 
 
 preaching of one form of religion is no longer 
 financially endowed by the State. The 
 Church has been disestablished and dis- 
 endowed : all able-bodied men and women 
 must now earn their own bread or else get 
 maintenance from those who choose to give 
 voluntary subscriptions. In adopting this 
 policy the Bolshevik Government has but fol- 
 lowed the lead given them by M. Clemenceau 
 in France, who led the campaign which ended 
 in the disestablishment and disendowment of 
 the French Church and the aboKtion of re- 
 ligious houses in France. And of course they 
 have followed in the footsteps of the Right 
 Honourable David Lloyd George, who was 
 the chief protagonist in the struggle which 
 has ended in the disestablishment and disen- 
 dowment of the Welsh Church, and, as the 
 right honourable gentleman puts it, has set up 
 in the principality a new descendant of " St. 
 David." 
 
 It is extraordinary how circumstances and 
 conditions can confuse and colour our judg- 
 ments. No one thinks of Clemenceau or 
 Lloyd George as anything but highly re- 
 spectable members of society : the one is more 
 or less a free thinker in addition to his other 
 qualities, described as those of the "tiger." 
 The other is a nonconformist whose first step 
 on the ladder of fame was taken in support of 
 the cause which some Christians in England 
 
LENIN, BOLSHEVISM AND KELIGION 47 
 
 and elsewhere call " robbing God " when 
 appUed to Russia. 
 
 My friendly priest also discussed the mar- 
 riage question with me. He is not a bit upset 
 that the marriage rite is a civil matter, and 
 here I must point out that in compelling mar- 
 riages to be registered in a State or Communal 
 registrj' office the Bolsheviks are only doing 
 exactly what has been done in France and 
 America for very many years. In our own 
 country tens of thousands of people are mar- 
 ried by the civil authority. In fact no marriage 
 is legal in England except those which take 
 place in an Anglican Church, unless a 
 registrar is present. No Roman Catholic or 
 Free Chm-ch service is recognised ; always it is 
 the civil functionary whose presence gives 
 legality to the proceedings. So why people 
 should lie about Russia and say the Bolsheviks 
 have destroyed the sanctity of marriage I can- 
 not understand. A couple, desirous of being 
 married, notify the proper civil authority, and 
 if afterwards they desire to go through the 
 religious ceremony which to them makes of 
 their marriage a sacrament, they are perfectly 
 free to do so. 
 
 I ha^■e dealt with the case of children else- 
 where. I need only say in passing that the 
 abolition of all questions concerning legitimacy 
 or illegitimacy and the clearing out of the 
 vocabulary of the wretched word " bastard " is 
 
48 WHAT I SAW IN EUSSIA 
 
 not altogether approved by the Church, but 
 from all I heard from friends and foes of the 
 Church in Russia, I do not think the standard 
 of sexual morality has ever been very high. 
 The lives of celibate and married priests have 
 at all times left very much to be desired. In 
 any case, all of us who think have long ago 
 given up the idea that it was our duty to assist 
 the Almighty in visiting the sins of the parents 
 upon the children, if for no other reason than 
 that no child is responsible for his parents. 
 I certainly did not choose my parents, neither 
 did my children choose theirs. 
 
 The divorce law is very simple. If two per- 
 sons being married agree that they cannot any 
 longer live together in peace and harmony, 
 they may be divorced without further enquiry, 
 but if one partner objects then enquiry must 
 take place. Divorce is granted on equal 
 terms : there is not one standard for women 
 and another for men. I think we shall all 
 make a mistake if we imagine that on ques- 
 tions of sex there can be one rigid rule for all 
 nations or even for all people within a nation. 
 The longer I live the more convinced mono- 
 gamist I am, but, and it is a very big but, I 
 have seen so much downright misery, so much 
 deceit and lying makebelieve by married 
 people trying to make the outside world be- 
 lieve they love one another, when indeed they 
 loath and detest each other, that I support any 
 
LENIN, BOLSHEVISM AND RELIGION 49 
 
 rational means whereby such people may 
 secure freedom from a tie which only degrades 
 them both. The period of marriage which 
 must elapse before a divorce can be applied 
 for is six months. This sounds a very short 
 time, but I am not convinced this is important. 
 If people find themselves totally unfitted, un- 
 suited to each other, the sooner it is realised 
 and acted upon the better. In Russia and else- 
 where the Church considers marriage a sacra- 
 ment and binding for life ; so do I, but this 
 cannot be imposed by a law or a Church 
 ordinance or by a priest saying it is. Only by 
 the conscious intelligent assent of men and 
 women is such a decree binding, and the vast 
 multitude of marriages are just marriages, 
 sometimes for convenience, sometimes for 
 love, very very seldom does the question of 
 religion or sacraments enter in. 
 
 So far I have dealt only with the relations 
 existing between the orthodox Church and the 
 Government. Like everywhere else, there is 
 within the Russian Church a revolutionary 
 movement which bids fair to undermine the 
 theories of Lenin and his friends, that religion 
 plays no part in the life of a people. The fol- 
 lowing statement shows that with the coming 
 of the Socialist republic the dry bones of 
 theology have begun to stir and that once 
 more the teachings of Jesus are going to have 
 a chance. I have verified the truth of the 
 
50 WHAT I SAW m RUSSIA 
 
 report as I give it here and can vouch for its 
 accuracy. I may say it has been circulated 
 throughout the whole of Russia, and as is usual 
 in such cases, the Bishop of Penza and his fol- 
 lowers have been excommunicated : 
 
 " An event whicli will lead to great consequences 
 has occurred in the Kussian Church. A Conference 
 of Eussian priests took place some months ago at 
 Penza, which was presided over by Bishop Vladimir. 
 At this conference the priests decided to break with 
 the Greek Orthodox Church and establish a new 
 Church on lines, as Bishop Vladimir expressed it, 
 that would more closely approach the purity of the 
 primitive Church and abolish the pomp and glory of 
 the great princes of the modern Church. The signific- 
 ance of this event is that it proves that the Russian 
 revolution is finally rooted in the soil of Russia. The 
 structure of the Church, like the whole superstructure 
 of society, as Karl Marx taught, is based upon the 
 economic foundations of a given society. The de- 
 velopment of commerce, which was later to lead to 
 capitalism, was accompanied by a revolt against the 
 Church. One might say that Protestantism is the 
 religious expression of liberalism and commercialism. 
 It is significant, therefore, to observe that what 
 appears to be the beginning of a " Reformation " in 
 Russia aims at the primitive Christian Church, which, 
 as is known, preached Communism. It will therefore 
 be quite in keeping with social laws that in so far as 
 the belief in God is still maintained by the Russian 
 people, the worship of this God will take the form 
 that is adapted to the economic conditions of Russia. 
 Communism has come to stay in Russia, and will be 
 expressed in the religious beliefs of the Russian 
 people." 
 
LENIN, BOLSHEVISM AND BELIGION 51 
 
 It may be said one swallow does not make a 
 summer, but those of us who know the tre- 
 mendous effect the work of Fathers Conrad 
 Noel, James Adderly, Lewis Donaldson, 
 Gobat, Widdrington, the late Canon Scott 
 Holland and others, working through the 
 Chm-ch Socialist League, has had on the Eng- 
 lish Church, may understand and appreciate 
 the sort of influence Bishop Vladimir and his 
 friends will have on the outlook of the Church 
 in Russia. If Christianity is to live in that 
 country, it must become the exponent of the 
 new social order, and such it appears to me it 
 will inevitably become. 
 
 The net result of all my conversations vdth 
 people of varying opinions is to convince me 
 that in Russia there is for everybody perfect 
 freedom to worship God. No sect is favoured 
 at the expense of another, no creed will be 
 supported against another. Each and all are 
 obliged to depend on the freewill oflFerings of 
 disciples and friends. The cathedrals and 
 churches remain sacred for the purposes for 
 which they were erected. Those beautiful 
 towers, one or two in number, injured during 
 the revolution are to be repaired at the expense 
 of the Government. It is the Church which 
 must now make good. After centuries of 
 sloth, during which her Bishops and leaders 
 have been the servants, not of God but of the 
 Czars, she is now free. In Moscow itself there 
 
52 WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA 
 
 are 1600 churches, or at least something ap- 
 proaching that number. There is but one 
 statement written up by order of the Govern- 
 ment declaring " Religion is the opium of the 
 people." What will the future say of a 
 Church which fails in its mission by refusing 
 to accept the great tasks which lie before it, 
 and refuses by its works to endeavour to prove 
 the falsity of the charge laid at its doors. 
 
 Long years ago a prophet of Israel looked 
 over the valley of dry bones and cried out 
 "Can these dry bones live?" Often in 
 Moscow, driving and walking about the 
 streets, seeing the beautiful churches and the 
 people making obeisance to the Ikons, these 
 words would come flooding into my mind, and 
 I remembered some other words : " Not by 
 might but by My spirit saith the Lord." 
 Surely Christians will ultimately judge the 
 Bolshevik dealings with the Russian Church 
 and religion in the spirit of these words, and 
 surely also we who think there must bq a 
 religious ethical basis for life will believe that 
 the Russian Church shall rise purified and 
 sanctified from the troubles of to-day and with 
 a whole-hearted purpose join Lenin and his 
 comrades in recreating the moral and material 
 life of the great nation which for nearly six 
 long weary years has been the prey of war, 
 pestilence and famine. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 CO-OPERATION, TRADE AND BUSINESS 
 
 In a striking appeal to the Russian people for 
 loyalty and effort on behalf of the nation, 
 Lenin said : ' ' All Soviet Russia will become 
 a United All Russian Co-operative Society of 
 Workers." This is the keynote and explana- 
 tion of the Soviet Government's attitude to- 
 wards the old Russian Co-operative Movement. 
 Socialism, Communism, Bolshevism, mean co- 
 operation, and co-operation means all three. 
 It has taken months of weary arguing and 
 much effort to overcome the open and avowed 
 hostility of co-operators towards the proposal 
 to absorb them as part of the organisation of 
 the State. I am not sure it is yet overcome. 
 No one should be surprised at this. The Co- 
 operative Movement everywhere has prided it- 
 self on the voluntary character of its work. In 
 England, Co-operators and Socialists are only 
 just commencing to understand how much 
 their theories of life are akin to each other. 
 
 53 
 
54 WHAT I SAW IN BUSSIA 
 
 The Bolsheviks from the start found them- 
 selves short-handed, understaffed for the vFork 
 of organising the nation. It is always easy for 
 a despot like a Czar to carry on his Govern- 
 ment : he has only to give the order and people 
 must obey. But in a society which is en- 
 deavouring to put into practice the forms of 
 democracy the business is more difficult. The 
 worst thing about an autocracy, even when it 
 is overthrown, rests in the fact that the evil it 
 has done lives after it. Lenin and his col- 
 leagues found themselves with a nation of over 
 one hundred million people and a country of 
 thousands of square miles to administer, with 
 nearly all the old rulers and leaders of the 
 people hostile. In spite of this, the country is 
 slowly being organised and made safe from the 
 evils arising out of the blockade and foreign 
 wars. 
 
 Critics and investigators who go to Russia 
 to see the revolution at work must bear in 
 mind the fact that Russia has seen nearly six 
 years of war, and for the last two and a half 
 years she has been faced also with civil war. 
 Consequently the Government and its adminis- 
 trators have had no chance. We shall all 
 make a great mistake unless from the outset 
 we recognise these facts when discussing 
 organisation of labour and distribution of food 
 under the Soviets. Life is becoming more 
 tolerable, the people who have assisted in this 
 
CO OPERATION, TBADE & BUSINESS 55 
 
 work and brought some amount of order out 
 of disorder are those co-operators, who aban- 
 doning their opposition to Government or- 
 ganisation and have wholeheartedly thrown 
 in their lot with the Government. 
 
 It was my good fortune to meet and talk 
 with co-operators whose political views were 
 neither Bolshevik nor anti-Bolshevik — and 
 found them all eager for peace. They have 
 accepted the Soviet Government as the only 
 possible Government for Russia at the present 
 time, and, like good Russians, all feel that 
 their desire for a kind of voluntary communism 
 must give Avay for the present to what they 
 consider is the best interest of the country. 
 Russian co-operators outside Russia can have 
 no idea how much these men and their friends 
 have done towards making life tolerable. One 
 of the worst results of the blockade has been 
 this ignorance of what was happening in 
 Russia. 
 
 In company with some friends, I went out 
 to a Convalescent Home for the purpose of 
 interviewing Andre Leshava, President of the 
 Central Union of Russian Co-operators. He 
 is a man of middle age. We found him tired 
 out and weary owing to the tremendous 
 amount of work he has had entrusted to his 
 care. He has been a co-operator for many 
 years and also a business man connected with 
 large insurance corporations. He is now act- 
 
56 WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA 
 
 ing as chief of the organisation for collecting 
 and distributing foodstuffs and other neces- 
 saries of life. It is dijB&cult for an outsider to 
 understand where the business of the Food 
 Ministry begins and ends, for as I understand 
 it, the co-operators do aU the practical work. 
 I think the Food Control department decides 
 the rations, the duty of the co-operative 
 organisations being to see that people get what 
 they are entitled to. 
 
 In the early days of the revolution, the 
 peasants would not part with their stocks be- 
 cause the Government was only able to give 
 paper money in exchange for foodstuffs, and 
 this money was almost valueless owing to the 
 fact there was no possibility of exchanging 
 money for clothes, boots, tools, seeds, etc. 
 In these circumstances even soldiers fovmd it 
 difficult to get the stores so badly needed by 
 the people in the towns. This is now changed. 
 The peasants willingly trade on credit with the 
 co-operators, accepting the Rouble paper 
 money as Government scrip to be redeemable 
 later on. From this it will be seen that the 
 co-operative movement in Russia has become 
 what many EngUsh co-operators desire it to 
 become here ; that is, an integral part of 
 food control and the sole organisation for the 
 distribution of the necessaries of life to the 
 people. I was told by some others besides 
 Leshava that the Russian character lends itself 
 
CQOPgBATIOy, TRADE & BUSINESS 57 
 
 very readily to the work of co-operation and 
 that the only reason for the antagonism which 
 arose at the time of the revolution was due to 
 ignorance of the aims and objects of the Bol- 
 sheviks. People did not realise that funda- 
 mentally all those who wished to organise in- 
 dustry as a social service were the natural allies 
 of those who wished to establish voluntary co- 
 operation. 
 
 Leshava, when asked what he claimed was 
 the object of the system of State co-opera- 
 tion of which he is chief, replied that the whole 
 conception was based on that of the Rochdale 
 Pioneers. Co-operation as understood in 
 Russia is the " spontaneous effort of the nation 
 to supply its own needs and become a series of 
 municipal and commvmal households." The 
 peasants who at one time bitterly opposed what 
 they considered State interference, acknow- 
 ledge the new law which takes from them a cer- 
 tain proportion of foodstuffs and other products 
 of their farms, and are slowly realising that co- 
 operation is a much bigger thing than the 
 mere collection or distribution of goods. All 
 the old district and provincial societies with 
 limited aims and objects have been absorbed 
 or abolished : there cannot be any sectional 
 jealousies because there are no sections. The 
 productive and distributive are parts of one 
 organisation. 
 
 Working peasants, who for the first time 
 
58 WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA 
 
 find themselves free of the domination of either 
 landlord or rich peasants, are slowly learning 
 the benefits to be derived from intercourse and 
 co-operation with each other. It is always 
 difficult to make people anywhere understand 
 that their wellbeing depends on each other. I 
 think, however, it will be easier in Russia than 
 anywhere else, as the peasants are very simple 
 and have not yet been spoiled by the commer- 
 cialism of America and Europe. Alongside the 
 small holdings of the ordinary peasant the 
 Soviet Government, using the machinery of 
 the co-operative movement, is endeavouring to 
 teach the benefits of mass production. Some 
 of the older agriculturists pour scorn on the 
 efforts and prophesy failure. As I listened to 
 one friend who had nothing but scorn and con- 
 tempt to heap on all such schemes, I re- 
 membered my own experience at Hollesley 
 Bay where a scheme of co-operative agricul- 
 ture in England was ruined by the same kind 
 of criticism. The results will be different in 
 Russia because the Government wants only 
 one thing, and that is the very highest standard 
 of life for all the people by the co-operative 
 effort of the whole nation. Once the towns- 
 people are able to give the peasants what they 
 need in the way of clothes, seeds, tools and 
 other necessaries of life, all friction will have 
 passed away between artisan and peasant; 
 once the advocates of mass production are able 
 
CO-OPEEATION, TEADE & BUSINESS 59 
 
 to demonstrate the superiority of their system 
 in giving a fuller life to all, there will be no 
 question as to which system will carry the day. 
 Soviet Russia is determined that no such 
 sordid, miserable, mean class of peasant as 
 those which the peasant profiteering system of 
 France and Belgium has created shall exist in 
 Russia. 
 
 As everywhere else, man does not live by 
 bread alone. There are great fisheries on the 
 Volga at Astrachan and elsewhere. It was not 
 pleasant being told how British airmen bombed 
 fishermen in order to prevent the industry 
 being carried on ; that the British Government 
 had created a new republic at Azerbaijan for 
 the sole purpose of making it impossible for the 
 Russian people to get oil from the wells at 
 Baku. 
 
 I cannot help saying here, how impossible it 
 is for me to discriminate between one form of 
 killing and another. I lived in East London 
 all through the war, except for twelve months, 
 and know from experience what air raids are, 
 and was often furiously savage in my denuncia- 
 tion of such acts committed against unarmed, 
 inoffensive people. Yet in Russia, fishermen 
 are killed by airmen, and thousands of child- 
 ren, women and men are starved to death 
 because of a blockade carried out by Christian 
 soldiers under orders of a Christian Govern- 
 ment. 
 
60 WHAT I SAW IN KUSSIA 
 
 The fisheries of Russia are being organised 
 co-operatively, as is all industry, but this will 
 be useless unless the oil from Baku is available 
 for use on the Volga steamers and for loco- 
 motives. I have read in The Times that it is 
 lack of foresight and organising ability which 
 has produced the food and fuel shortage in 
 Russia. This is nonsense : a great part of the 
 shortage is due to the shutting down of traflBc 
 on the Volga, caused solely by lack of the oil 
 which the British authorities preferred should 
 pour into the sea rather than be used for the 
 service of the people of Russia. 
 
 There is one other thing to be said on the 
 question of co-operation. As is well understood 
 by all who have the most elementary knowledge 
 of Russia, there is much, very much, ignorance 
 amongst all classes. Millions, at the time of 
 the fall of Czardom, could neither read nor 
 write. Even now painted signs appear outside 
 shops describing what is on sale within because 
 people cannot read. This fact alone makes all 
 work of reconstruction and reform doubly 
 hard. 
 
 Andre Leshava, like all other leaders of 
 thought and action in Russia, was keen to 
 know what our wholesale co-operative societies 
 intended to do with regard to international 
 trade. He realises that Russia cannot stand 
 alone as a co-operative State but must find 
 some bond of union with other lands, and 
 
COO PERATI ON, TRADE & BUSINESS 61 
 
 naturally looks to England as the home of co- 
 operation. 
 
 There ought to be no difi&cultj' about inter- 
 national trade and business generally, if those 
 who desire trade with Russia are animated 
 with the true co-operative spirit. There will 
 be difficulty with those whose sole desire is, by 
 means of trade relationships, to re-establish 
 competitive commercialism with all its horrors. 
 That the pure and simple communism aimed 
 at by the Bolshevik revolution will, of neces- 
 sity, be modified, is of course true. Russia, 
 as part of a world made up of commercial 
 nations, cannot live her life exactly as she 
 pleases, and the strength of the Bolsheviks lies 
 in the fact that one and all of their chief men 
 imderstand this. 
 
 Krassin, who is Commissar for Trade, 
 Transport and Commerce at home and abroad, 
 is under no delusions as to the conditions under 
 which the ordinary capitalists will consent to 
 do business with his fellow countrymen ; but 
 to be forewarned is to be forearmed. Conse- 
 quently when concessions are granted or busi- 
 ness done with great monopolist concerns, very 
 severe watertight conditions will be laid down 
 for the purpose of preventing the servants of 
 capitalism corrupting the minds of the Russian 
 workers. Krassin, in his interview with me. 
 laid stress on all the vital needs of Russia, but 
 was emphatic in his declaration that real busi- 
 
62 WHAT I SAW IN BUS SI A 
 
 ness could not be re-established unless peace 
 was assured. 
 
 Since my return I noticed in the Press a 
 desire to belittle the efforts of the Soviet 
 Government for the establishment of trade re- 
 lationships and attempts made to prove the 
 insincerity of Tchitcherin because he insists 
 on the impossibility of a complete restora- 
 tion of trade relationship without peace. 
 This is not merely a question of morals but 
 of practical necessity. The fact that nearly 
 seventy per cent, of the railway transport of 
 Russia is out of action and that what is effec- 
 tive must be used to feed and equip armies in 
 the field, is not only almost entirely the cause 
 of suffering and misery everywhere; it also 
 makes it impossible to move goods, especially 
 flax and grain, for transport. There is a 
 further reason : Tchitcherin and his colleagues 
 believe the beneficial results of opening up 
 Russia to international trade will be shared by 
 all nations, and they are not prepared to assist 
 in stabilising the exchanges of Europe imtil 
 the Governments of Europe are prepared to 
 grant the people of Russia peace on terms of 
 equality and honour. 
 
 Discussing this question of trade with Com- 
 rade Nogin, who is head of the Central Union 
 of Textile Workers, I was surprised to find 
 how clear and definite are the proposals for a 
 resumption of trade. Neither he nor Krassin 
 
CO-OPERATION, TRADE & BUSINESS 63 
 
 see any difficulty as to arrangements for bank- 
 ing or credit. No private corporations or in- 
 dividuals are allowed, or in future will be 
 allowed, to set up these institutions. The 
 National Bank of Russia is the only bank 
 through which business can be done with 
 Russia. There is, I am told, a considerable 
 amount of gold available for the purchase of 
 goods, but Krassin is not anxious that business 
 should be done merely by exchanging gold for 
 goods. He prefers exchanging goods for 
 goods. This is where the transport question 
 comes in : if the accumulated stores are to be 
 set free Russia must be able to secure at least 
 two thousand locomotives. The infamous em- 
 bargo put on the Baku oil wells by the British 
 must also be removed. 
 
 There is another outstanding fact which 
 proves that the Russian people themselves do 
 not intend to go back to capitalism and the 
 Czardom. In spite of dissensions and disagree- 
 ments all co-operative societies are now iinited 
 in deed as well as word. From Archangel 
 right away to Omsk all the small and large 
 societies are federated. The biggest socie- 
 ties in Siberia are joined with those of the 
 Moscow province. To understand what this 
 means we in England should try to realise the 
 effect which will be produced when all the 
 wholesale and retail productive and distribu- 
 tive co-operative societies from John o' 
 
04 WHAT I SAW IN EUSSIA 
 
 Groats to Land's End are federated and 
 working together as a single unit. This is 
 what has happened in Russia, and although 
 many of the original co-operators shake their 
 heads and are not certain what the outcome 
 will be, others are confident the co-operative 
 ideal will prevail. 
 
 Walking through the streets of villages and 
 towns in Russia, the fact that most shops and 
 stores are shut, gives the appearance of dead- 
 ness, as if all life had departed. People like 
 myself who all at once find themselves in an 
 environment where there is no noise of what 
 is called trade and commerce, are apt to 
 imagine that nothing is being done. Many 
 people who have come out of Russia have 
 brought stories of the absolute wreck and ruin 
 of every sort of private and national enterprise. 
 No one can deny that very terrible shortage 
 and privation have been and still are being 
 endured by masses of men and women : when 
 however we remember that huge armies have 
 been armed, fed and transported to at least 
 four different battle fronts, that over one 
 hundred million people have been fed, clothed 
 and housed, however imperfectly, it is not only 
 difficult to believe that industry is at a stand- 
 still, it is simply incredible. What has hap- 
 pened in Russia is just this : all the old useless 
 forms of labour are, to a large extent, 
 abolished. There is no advertising, no illicit 
 
CO-OPEEATION, TRADE & BUSINESS 6r, 
 
 adulteration, no opening of competitive shops 
 and stores. Everything in the form of labour 
 has been reduced to the one word " utility." 
 The production of food is carried on in the 
 largest factories possible. Bread is baked in 
 huge loaves, which are afterwards distributed 
 at central stores. Food kitchens and public 
 restaurants are for the most part very small 
 and not overclean, but they all save labour by 
 centralising distribution. 
 
 Clothing stores are in the same category. 
 iSIost of these are very large and controlled by 
 the local Soviets. Tickets enabling the holders 
 to buy up to a stated value are distributed to 
 all who earn them. By this means clothing is 
 secured at cheaper prices. 
 
 The aim, howe\er, of all organisation in 
 Russia is to abolish the use of money. In 
 some parts of Petrograd all houses are rent 
 free, trams are free, food is free, and also 
 necessaries such as boots and clothing. Con- 
 sequently there is less and less scope for private 
 enterprise, but the idea of money and money- 
 making takes a good deal of killing. The 
 trains going daily into Moscow and Petrograd 
 carry thousands of peasants and speculators 
 whose one idea is to make money. The 
 Government endeavo\irs by very drastic 
 measures to put down this kind of thing, so far 
 with only partial success. The oldest market 
 in Russia is in Moscow. It is held in a \'ery 
 
66 WHAT I SAW IN BUSSIA 
 
 broad roadway over a mile long and in some 
 places twice as wide as the biggest road in 
 London. At this place every day in the week, 
 every sort of article of wearing apparel, furni- 
 ture and food is on sale. It is illegal either to 
 buy or to sell certain food stuffs in this way, 
 but in spite of very severe penalties it con- 
 tinues mainly because so many people are 
 hungry. I asked Lenin why it was more de- 
 termined efforts were not made to put an end 
 to this sort of thing. He replied that the 
 Government felt it was impossible really to 
 get rid of the spirit of capitalism until every- 
 body was assured of a sufficiency of everything 
 needed for a decent life. Once peace was 
 signed and they were able to get mass produc- 
 tion in full swing there would be such an 
 abundance for everybody that no one would 
 need to be mean or covetous. 
 
 I was struck by the fact that the central 
 stores were perfect hives of activity. If it is 
 true shops are closed, it is not true to say shop- 
 ping has been put an end to. Neither must 
 we imagine that in the case of clothing every- 
 thing has been reduced to a dead level of 
 uniformity. In the case of women's hats and 
 bonnets, there is one big room at the co-opera- 
 tive stores devoted entirely to these, and the 
 proof that variety of headgear for women is 
 obtainable is evident to all who care to use 
 their eyes in the streets. The manufacture of 
 
CQOPEBATIQN, TRADE & BUSINESS 67 
 
 a sort of cotton cloth from flax, of which 
 Nogin and his friends are very proud, has 
 enabled the clothing stores to place a variety 
 of such goods on sale for women and men. 
 Therefore in one more instance the Bolsheviks 
 are demonstrating that Socialism, in spite of 
 red ties and trilby hats in England, does not 
 mean that everybody shall wear standard suits 
 or anything else so stupid. I would like to 
 stress the fact that though shops are closed, 
 these big central stores are at all times very 
 busy, that the chiefs as well as their subor- 
 dinates are kept well occupied, and that being a 
 servant of the Soviet Government means having 
 plenty of work to do. The volume of neces- 
 sary business in Russia is still very consider- 
 able, but is better organised. All the use- 
 less competitive labour associated with trade 
 and commerce here and elsewhere is gradually 
 being eliminated. Once peace is secured, all 
 the problems which now perplex friend and 
 foe will be cleared away. 
 
 There can be no doubt of the fact that even 
 now, with all the coercion, misery and suffer- 
 ing, there is a better, more equal distribution 
 of the necessaries of life than ever before. It 
 is of small importance whether shops are open 
 or shut except in so far as in either case they 
 affect the equitable distribution of the things 
 needed by the people. The Nevsky Prospect, 
 with its rows of fine shops, now nearly all 
 
68 WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA 
 
 closed, may look like a desolated area ; shops 
 with similar purpose are also closed in the 
 working class districts. It is not merely that 
 the super-abundance of servers of the rich have 
 been abohshed, but also the superfluous shops 
 and stores which used to fleece the poor are 
 also gone, and this is a fact for rejoicing rather 
 than sorrowing. 
 
 As I saw things in Russia, the social and 
 industrial organisation is slowly but surely 
 moving towards a complete thorough-going 
 co-operative organisation of life. I do not 
 think this will be reached in all its fulness for 
 a generation, perhaps two. I am certain 
 though there will be no going back, that 
 gradually the coercive measures will give way 
 before the willing enthusiastic agreement of 
 all sections of the people to serve the common- 
 weal. People ask, will ever the Russian busi- 
 ness people go back to Russia ? I think many 
 of them will do so. I also hope the co-opera- 
 tors out of Russia will also go back and settle 
 down to the work of organising their great 
 country. Nowhere in the whole wide world 
 is there such an abundance of natural wealth 
 as in Russia, and nowhere is there, in my 
 opinion, a people more capable of being 
 organised and led along the road leading to the 
 Communist State than in that great country. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 TRADE UNIONS AND LABOUR ORGANISATION 
 
 The Trade Union Movement has not been 
 abolished in Russia and is not hkely to be. 
 The Headquarters of the Federation of Rus- 
 sian workers is to be ifound in the Nobles' 
 Club at Moscow. It was certainly a happy 
 thought which placed this fine building at the 
 service of organised labour. A big discussion 
 and controversy is going on at present as to 
 whether in the future organisation of industry 
 a Government Labour Department will be 
 necessary side by side with Trade Union 
 organisation. No one can yet say what 
 modifications of the Communist system 
 business and trade relationships with the out- 
 side world will require. It is certain some 
 very serious modifications will take place. 
 The granting of concessions to foreign cor- 
 porations, the promise to pay the national 
 debt of Russia and to compensate foreigners 
 for losses of money and property owing to 
 
 69 
 
70 WHAT I SAW IN EUSSIA 
 
 the revolution will compel this whether the 
 Soviet or any other Government in Russia 
 likes it or not. 
 
 Comrade Melnichansky is Secretary of the 
 Executive Committee of the All Russian 
 Federation of Trade Unions and one of the 
 most clear-headed of the labour men I met 
 in Russia. He is a communist, who before 
 the revolution was an exile working for his 
 living in America, and like thousands of others 
 was waiting for the call to come which would 
 take him back to fight for freedom in his 
 native land. That call came in 1917 when 
 with Trotsky and several others he started 
 his journey home. The British Government, 
 he told me, is more responsible for the pres- 
 ence of Trotsky and himself in Russia than 
 anyone else. Had the authorities representing 
 Britain in Canada so desired they could very 
 easily have detained these revolutionaries when 
 they were held in custody both on board ship 
 and on land. Melnichansky tells with great 
 glee the story of how he and his friends chaffed 
 the British officers for being representatives 
 of a Government afraid of a handful of 
 Bolsheviks. 
 
 Since meeting him I have met people who 
 are still of opinion that the Germans bribed 
 Lenin and his friends to make the revolution 
 and gave them safe conduct across Germany 
 for that purpose. It seems to me the charge 
 
TEAPE UNIONS AND LABOUR 71 
 
 may just as truthfully be laid at the door of 
 the British Government. In any case these 
 Russian revolutionaries home from America 
 are the leaders and inspirers of nearly all 
 National work and in the end, it is they, no 
 matter what form of organisation is set up 
 who will determine how the business of or- 
 ganising industry is to be carried on. They 
 are all keen Trade Unionists and in addition 
 are class conscious communists. Already the 
 whole work of labour exchange is in the hands 
 of the unions ; where out of work pay is 
 needed they pay it ; when labour is needed to 
 be moved from one place to another they 
 make the necessary arrangements ; sickness 
 and sanatorium benefit is managed by the 
 unions and so also is the payment of maternity 
 benefit. Hours of labour and workshop con- 
 ditions are variable in different trades and 
 places ; owing to the great shortage and lack 
 of transport the eight hour day has been al- 
 tered to permit of overtime so that a total of 
 twelve hours per day can be worked. The 
 school age of 16 has, in certain instances, 
 been lowered owing to shortage of labour, 
 'fhese facts cause the enemies of the new 
 regime much rejoicing. They appear to 
 imagine it is possible to create ideal condi- 
 tions in the midst of war and civil war. When 
 this is proved impossible it is argued that the 
 whole system is a failure. 
 
72 WHAT I SAW IN KUSSIA 
 
 However, all that is needed to enable our 
 Russian brothers to prove their ability to 
 organise and live as Communists is peace and 
 trade relationships. Meantime the Trade 
 Unions come nearer and nearer to being the 
 dominant factor in organising industry, al- 
 ways with the aiJ of experts. It is a won- 
 drous thing these revolutionists are trying to 
 do under almost impossible conditions. I have 
 always reckoned that given a peaceful trans- 
 formation, it would be difficult to convince 
 people they should do their best, and submit 
 to discipline for the service of each other. 
 Yet in Russia, with all the disorder and sor- 
 did misery, they do appear to be creating that 
 sort of spirit, and translating it into everyday 
 life. 
 
 It is a wonderful achievement to have 
 settled the woman question as it has been 
 settled in Russia. I saw women and men, 
 youths and girls, and all classes, at work snow 
 cleaning. I think from the capitalist stand- 
 point it would have been considered waste. 
 A few good snow ploughs would have cleared 
 a path down the streets quicker and better. 
 But none were available and so everybody is 
 expected once a month to put in eight hours 
 at the work of snow cleaning. While the 
 snow is soft it is an easy job ; when it is 
 trampled and frozen hard, pickaxes and crow- 
 bars are needed and women find it rather 
 
TEADE UNIONiS AND LABOUE 73 
 
 difficult and laborious work. Yet it has to 
 be done, and as I \'ery often stood jt'or a mo- 
 ment and looked at those who were doing 
 this work, however unaccustomed they were 
 for the job, I do not think anybody was in- 
 jured. It is not only in snow cleaning that 
 women and girls work on terms of equality 
 with men. They are on an equal footing in 
 the Unions and in aU industries are paid the 
 same wages as men, being allowed the pri- 
 vilege of producing 15 per cent, less than 
 men. Maternity benefit consists of eight 
 weeks' holiday on full pay before and after 
 childbirth, extra food and nourishment during 
 those weeks, and extra food afterwards if the 
 baby is nursed. I do not believe that anywhere 
 else in the world women are so free and so re- 
 spected and cared for as in Russia. 
 
 One problem wliich was rather difficult of 
 solution was that of holidays. Under the old 
 regime there were innumerable holidays con- 
 nected with the Church. The Soviet Govern- 
 ment rules out all interference with the Church 
 and religion in order to prevent dissatisfaction. 
 All workers are gi\en the choice of ten working 
 days a jear on which they may, if they desire, 
 keep hoHday. In addition the Bolsheviks have 
 set apart eight days including May Day as 
 national holidays, so there are eighteen sep- 
 arate holidays in a year. Besides these, the 
 workers are allowed two weeks' holiday a year, 
 
74 WHAT I SAW IN BU8SIA 
 
 all on full pay. These privileges are not in 
 full operation yet owing to the war. 
 
 There is also a very firm belief in the doc- 
 trine of one day's rest in seven which results 
 in no morning papers on Monday. There are 
 no Sunday papers as such; all papers come 
 out on Sunday morning but no evening papers 
 on that day. This enables all workers con- 
 nected with the production of newspapers to 
 have Sunday free. I wonder when newsj)aper 
 workers in this country will demand one day's 
 rest in seven and refuse to accept a standard 
 of living dependent on overtime and a seven- 
 day week. Theatres are open on Sunday and 
 closed on Monday so that the actors and per- 
 formers may get their day of rest. I found 
 this was a rule also in some Scandinavian 
 countries. I should be thankful to see it 
 adopted here. The trade unions also manage 
 the distribution of tickets for the National 
 Theatres : they are allowed two-thirds for each 
 performance. I think there are eight theatres 
 paid for directly out of national funds. 
 
 Another question very seriously discussed 
 while I was in Russia was Trotsky's appeal 
 for a labour army. Everybody agreed that all 
 able-bodied citizens must take their part in 
 the work of supplying the needs of the com- 
 munity, but some, especially the anarchists, 
 were very sceptical indeed as to the wisdom 
 of allowing labour to be organised in armies 
 
TRADE UNIONS AND LABOUE 75 
 
 for mass production. Trotsky in his famous 
 speech delivered at a great meeting held in 
 the National Theatre, Moscow, last February 
 did not attempt to minimise the danger to 
 individual freedom, but based his case for this 
 innovation entirely on the fact that by no 
 other means could present day difficulties be 
 overcome. He swept away the idea that men 
 like himself desired to rule and boss ; pointed 
 out that no revolution could exist without 
 work ; that it was not yet certain that Wes- 
 tern Europe and America would go to the 
 assistance of Russia, and, even if they did, 
 it still remained the duty of Russia to re- 
 create and build up her own internal life and 
 industry. 
 
 I heard much criticism from friends and 
 enemies of the Bolsheviks, but not a single 
 critic had any better proposal to make. The 
 soldiers in the Red Army seem to have a 
 clearer conception than others of what is 
 wanted. When it was proposed to demobilise 
 the seventh army and send the soldiers home 
 because they were no longer needed to fight 
 Denikin, the men got together and sent a 
 request to Trotsky asking that instead of going 
 home they should remain mobilised and under 
 the same officers be allowed to work as a dis- 
 ciplined army of labour. This was the start 
 of the Labour army. Someone coined the 
 phrase, "The bloodless front," and soon 
 
76 WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA 
 
 everybody was talking about the triumph and 
 victories on this new front. Many tons of 
 coal were raised, wood was cut, bridges re- 
 paired, railway tracks cleared, and in a 
 thousand ways the enthusiasm formerly given 
 to the work of slaughter was transferred to 
 the victories of peace. 
 
 If Russia has her way she will have no 
 standing army and will disarm, but this de- 
 pends on her neighbours and mainly on Bri- 
 tain. If she and America disarm so also will 
 Russia; meantime when peace is signed the 
 army will become a militia ; battalions will be 
 formed on a territorial basis. It is proposed 
 that this militia will be thus enabled to live 
 at home where massed production in farming, 
 railway construction, mining, etc., is carried 
 on. Men will work together, get their train- 
 ing together and in the event of war, will be 
 organised together in battalions for fighting 
 purposes. 
 
 By this means it is hoped to obviate the 
 barrack system and get rid of the existing 
 evils by which millions of men are segregated 
 apart from their families. There is one other 
 thing to bear in mind : it is this ; the one great 
 industrial principle which animates Lenin and 
 his friends is "Nothing without Labour." 
 " He who will not work, neither shall he 
 eat," and this surely should be the watchword 
 of all Socialists. 
 
TEADE UNIONS AND LABOUE 77 
 
 I shall have occasion to deal with education 
 in another chapter. Here I only need say 
 that the unions are very keen on adult edu- 
 cation. Lenin has given a great impetus to 
 this by his famous message, '' To get more 
 we must produce more ; to produce more we 
 must know more." Ignorance is looked upon 
 as a crime against the commonweal. Univer- 
 sities are springing up everywhere ; uniAcrsity 
 extension lectures and classes are held in order 
 to substitute knowledge and understanding 
 for the deadly superstition and ignorance 
 fostered and supported by the Czars and their 
 handmaiden, the Church. 
 
 In order that I might see people at work, 
 I asked Melnichansky to arrange visits which 
 he very readily did for the next day. Going 
 round one workshop we met men who had 
 not seen our friend since the days before the 
 revolution and I had the pleasure of hearing 
 the story of the effect created by the revolu- 
 tion on socialists, anarchists and commimists 
 liA'ing abroad ; how all their dislike of each 
 other's methods seemed to be forgotten, and 
 how one and all decided to get back to Russia 
 at the earhest possible moment. It is not as 
 well known as it should be, that thousands of 
 workers in Russia to-day were, before the war, 
 exiles who at the call of revolution ga\e up all 
 they possessed in order to go home and assist 
 the revolution. I met one group of such men 
 
 7 
 
78 WHAT I SAW IN BUSSIA 
 
 and women in this workshop ; most were 
 anarchists, all of them skilled workers. In 
 New York they had established a toolmaker's 
 business and conducted it on purely co-opera- 
 tive lines. All through the war they had been 
 able to secure lots of work and consequently 
 shared considerable profits. When the revo- 
 lution took place these people without a 
 moment's hesitation wound up their business 
 and took ship to Odessa. For a time they 
 were able to work in a town in South Russia ; 
 the advance of Denikin's army last summer 
 drove them to Moscow. I discovered them 
 in a very large suite of workshops carrying 
 on the business of toolmaking. 
 
 They conduct the workshop on strictly 
 co-operative lines : there is a freedom and 
 equality about the organisation which is ap- 
 parent from the moment of entry. The 
 buildings were given to this group by the 
 Government. All the fitting up, erection of 
 machinery and general planning has been done 
 by the workers themselves. Many of the 
 machines and tools, formerly used in America, 
 were brought to Russia. Denikin's army de- 
 stroyed some and as is usual other parts were 
 lost or damaged on the journey. What could 
 be saved is now in full use : lots more though 
 is needed and consequently much of the work 
 done at this factory is on jobs which would 
 be classed under the head of capital expendi- 
 
TBADE UNIONS AND LABO UR 79 
 
 ture. At this shop I received my first lesson 
 in workers' organisation and control. The work 
 is organised differently from what I saw else- 
 where and is evidence that when conditions 
 are more settled industry will not be organised 
 on one cast iron basis but that groups of 
 workers will devise their own best methods 
 for carrying on the work of the con\munity. 
 
 As many of those employed here could 
 speak English, it was possible to discuss 
 without an interpreter. My friend Griffin 
 Barrj'^ discussed matters with one group, and 
 I had another group in a separate part of the 
 workshop. The managers are elected by the 
 workers on the principle one person one vote : 
 all real grievances are settled by the vote of 
 all ; rules and regulations are discussed and 
 approved. All deferred to expert opinion on 
 matters requiring special knowledge, but each 
 worker was expected and encouraged to make 
 suggestions as to how to increase output and 
 at the same time reduce exhausting labour to 
 a minimum. Holidays, sick pay, overtime, 
 all these matters were discussed and settled by 
 committees representing the workers. 
 
 As we walked round and talked, first at one 
 machine, then at another, the thought that 
 came to my mind was, how very much alike 
 all engineering and toolshops are, and what a 
 very little difference there is in the lay out of 
 one set of machines and another; and as I 
 
80 WHAT I SAW IN BUSSIA 
 
 looked at the makers' name-plates on the 
 various machines it was interesting to realise 
 that German, British and American manu- 
 facturers all had a part in supplying machinery 
 for these Russian shops, proving how de- 
 pendent we all are one upon the other. 
 
 In discussing conditions, all without ex- 
 ception complained of lack of food and fuel. 
 Undoubtedly these men and women accus- 
 tomed to a fairly high standard of living in 
 America are bitterly disappointed at finding 
 themselves cold and hungry in Russia. Al- 
 though they spoke bitterly of the shortage, 
 not one of them suggested it was the fault of 
 the Government or that a change of Govern- 
 ment would remedy matters. Each man who 
 discussed this question asked " When are you 
 British workers going to compel your Govern- 
 ment to leave us alone." I was obliged to 
 hear this question again and again while in 
 Russia, and found it very difficult to answer. 
 
 This workshop and its organisation is a 
 sample of the kind of organisation which will 
 very largely develop and increase so soon as 
 peace is secured. Undoubtedly there is at 
 present very much central control : at the 
 same time individual initiative and local or- 
 ganisation is being encouraged. Even now, 
 when there is admittedly much central or- 
 ganisation it has been found possible to permit 
 small groups of people such as these, to or- 
 
TBADE UNIONS AND L ABOUR 81 
 
 ganise an industry and make it a federated 
 part of the whole system. Whatever may be 
 necessary to-day in the way of centralised 
 organisation and control, there are too many 
 anarchists in Russia and the Russian character 
 is too "anti-authority" to make it possible 
 for any Government bearing the semblance of 
 democracy to impose upon it a rigid system 
 of organisation. 
 
 Melnichansky also took us round a couple 
 of factories organised and controlled by the 
 State or under rules and regulations made by 
 the State, which also includes participation of 
 workers in the management. Aeroplanes are 
 now being entirely manufactured in Moscow 
 as also are motors and bicycles. The work- 
 shops through which we passed consisted of 
 the toolmaking, engineering, woodworking and 
 assembling shops and also the foundry. Here 
 the organisation of actual work and output is 
 in the hands of three persons. There was no 
 pretence at co-operation as in the previous 
 shop we had inspected. There were organisers 
 and managers, but all were subject to control 
 of the three persons, two of whom were elected 
 by the Aote of the workers and one appointed 
 by a sectional committee of the Supreme 
 Council of Economics. 
 
 I believe that all State factories are managed 
 in a similar manner. Factories formerly con- 
 trolled by local Soviets are now, I am told, 
 
82 WHAT I SAW IN BUSSIA 
 
 managed on similar lines to the State factories. 
 All the work of the factories I visited where 
 some three to four thousand persons are em- 
 ployed is heavily handicapped for lack of raw 
 material and fuel. The foimdry compared 
 with any other I have seen was very inefficient 
 solely because proper fuel is not available. In 
 spite of every drawback there was, however, 
 clear, unmistakeable evidence that by en- 
 thusiasm and effort production was increasing 
 week by week. Before the war much of the 
 machinery used in Russia was imported. 
 French firms to a large extent controlled the 
 manufacture of aeroplanes : it was the custom 
 to assemble parts brought from abroad, but 
 not actually to manufacture. Imports were 
 stopped owing to the blockade and conse- 
 quently the Russians, if they wanted aero- 
 planes, motors and machinery were obliged to 
 settle down to do the work of manufacture 
 themselves. From the outset they had been 
 handicapped owing to lack of transport, and 
 because of this shortage we see in Russia the 
 extraordinary spectacle of multitudes of people 
 cold and hungry in a country enormously rich 
 in natural resources of every kind and with an 
 abundance of foodstuffs. The Allied blockade 
 in keeping out the means whereby the trans- 
 port system could be dealt with has destroyed 
 thousands of lives, but the wicked wars waged 
 with the help of British gold, guns and muni- 
 
TEADE UNIONS AND LABOUE 83 
 
 tions by Kolchak, Denikin, Yudendich and 
 others is responsible for the suffering and 
 death of tens of thousands. Russia could 
 have laughed at the blockade if her organisers 
 and experts had been allowed peace to or- 
 ganise for the service of the nation. But as 
 is the case everywhere else, when war comes 
 the business of killing and destruction has the 
 first call on the energy and resources of the 
 nation. In spite of this it is the fact that old 
 industries have been to some extent kept going 
 and new ones started. These works of which 
 I am now writing prove this. Very proudly 
 was I shown new aeroplanes made on British 
 models all ready for use — every scrap of 
 material and work being Russian. In order 
 to prove beyond doubt that the machines were 
 perfect Barry and myself were invited to get 
 into one and go for a spin in the air. Al- 
 though we refused a young airman who for- 
 merly belonged to the upper classes took one 
 out and within a few seconds was almost out 
 of sight, using as motive power an evil smell- 
 ing sort of spirit which necessity has created 
 for the service of Russia. It is something for 
 these so called dreamers and theorists to be 
 able to demonstrate their abihty to manu- 
 facture such highly specialised machines as 
 aeroplanes. Could they but get the raw 
 material they would very soon build all the 
 locomotives they need : but the raw material 
 
84 WHAT I SAW IN EUSSIA 
 
 is far away so they must import some oif the 
 finished articles before they can hope to get 
 going. 
 
 The organisation of each department of 
 these works was orderly and efficient, the stores 
 perfect, the methods adopted to detect bad 
 workmanship or material were excellent. Here 
 it was possible to see women and men working 
 side by side together. While going round 
 these factories we were informed that the day 
 before the election of representatives to the 
 Moscow Soviet had taken place. I enquired 
 if it was true that only communists could be 
 elected and that terrorism was used to pre- 
 vent the free exercise of the vote. No one 
 I asked had ever seen any terrorism and every- 
 one assured me that irrespective of opinion 
 any person qualified to vote might be elected. 
 The vote is open, not by ballot. I should feel 
 an objection to this if it were possible as in 
 England to elect members of the master class, 
 or if the same deadly corrupting influence of 
 direct and indirect bribery were possible. In 
 these factories, some of the leading organisers 
 are men who belonged to the capitalist class 
 before the revolution. I consider much of the 
 efficiency of organisation is due to the very 
 exceptional loyality of such men, one of whom 
 we were able to have some discussion with. 
 I found him most enthusiastic about his work. 
 He was not very clear what the end of the 
 
TBADE U NIONS AND L ABOUB 85 
 
 present regime would be, but he was confident 
 that Russia would pull through and ultimately 
 lead the world. 
 
 Two or three big and little workshops do not 
 prove that industry in Riissia is being carried 
 on as it should be. All the same these work- 
 shops do demonstrate that even in the midst 
 of war and civil war, the business of organis- 
 ing industry has been carried on and in some 
 industries actually set going afresh. I am cer- 
 tain that given a great social upheaval in this 
 coxintry and a blockade of our ports by an 
 enemy fleet, we should very soon find our- 
 selves in a worse plight than our friends in 
 Russia. 
 
 Later on while in Moscow I was able to 
 get into touch with the textile industry 
 through an interview with Comrade Nogin 
 who is the President of the Central Organisa- 
 tion of Textile Factories. Nogin, like all the 
 others who are organising the life of Russia, 
 has spent much of his time in prison and 
 abroad. He lived for a time near Manchester 
 and acquired first hand knowledge of the tex- 
 tile industry. Much of the time spent with 
 him was used by him interviewing me. He 
 was very anxious to know all about wages, 
 conditions and the supply of raw material, 
 especially flax in Ireland and England. I 
 told him all I knew which was not very much 
 and he was very much interested in the gam- 
 
86 WHAT I SAW IN BUSSIA 
 
 bling with 'shares in Lancashire and thought 
 that the workers would very soon discover 
 that the inflation caused by this buying and 
 selling of mills would inevitably be to the 
 disadvantage of the people generally. 
 
 Like every other industry the textile busi- 
 ness is heavily handicapped because of the war. 
 The importation of cotton from Turkestan 
 and elsewhere has stopped and as is the case 
 with many other industries, new sources of 
 supply and new methods have been adopted. 
 Russia produces lots of flax. Her chemists 
 have discovered two processes by which cotton 
 goods are produced from flax. I saw stacks 
 of such goods in a huge " Soviet Store." I 
 am not expert enough to explain the process, 
 but the effect is to turn half the flax into 
 cotton. Without this discovery the Russian 
 people would have gone very short of clothes. 
 
 Only first class goods are manujfactured. 
 There is no grading as apparently one rule 
 has been adopted : the best is good enough 
 for the workers. In order to utilise to the 
 fullest extent the flax that is produced, peas- 
 ants are now being taught to secure a greater 
 return from their produce. Much waste has 
 taken place in the past and no doubt much is 
 still taking place. If the advice of Nogin 
 and his colleagues is taken it is estimated that 
 an extra 40 million poods of flax will be avail- 
 able for use without a single pood increase in 
 
TBADE UNIONS AND LABOUR 87 
 
 production. It is all a question of using 
 everything and wasting nothing. 
 
 Some peasants object to the new instruc- 
 tions and regulations ; though each season it 
 is expected the opposition will grow less. In 
 the factories production is hindered because 
 of shortage of food and raw material. Some 
 are closed down entirely, others have been 
 re-modelled, some textile factories have been 
 turned to other uses. Many have been en- 
 tirely re-modelled, especially those belonging 
 to the old nobility which were badly organised 
 and equipped with antiquated machinery. I 
 was shown charts which demonstrated that 
 greater production was entirely dependent on 
 good organisation, and, chief of all, on a 
 plentiful supply of food and other necessaries 
 for the life of the workers. Once our blockade 
 is really moved and transport facilities are 
 available, all the factories will be working full 
 time. Meantime everything is being done to 
 save labour. I find an opinion abroad that in 
 Russia the one thing people are obliged to do 
 is work, and lots of it ; that everybody must 
 work is true, but the efforts of all in authority 
 are directed to the one purpose of saving 
 labour. There is no sort of theory or practice 
 that the one object in life is work. The 
 guiding principle is " We work to live not 
 live to work." I shall expect to see Russia 
 taking the lead in producing and using labour- 
 
WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA 
 
 saving appliances ; especially will this be the 
 case in respect to factories. The offices of this 
 textile organisation are worth a word : they 
 are situated just outside what is called China- 
 town — a part of Moscow outside the real 
 Kremlin but yet surrounded by a wall. These 
 offices contain all the Central Staff which 
 deals with everything connected with textile 
 factories, which has to do with the provision 
 of raw material, machinery, etc., and the dis- 
 tribution of the finished products. All weav- 
 ing factories are grouped for purposes of 
 administration : 80 per cent, are under Central 
 Management and 20 per cent, under local 
 Soviets or Councils. Spinning factories are 
 dealt vvdth in a similar manner. In every case 
 the workpeople through the Trade Unions 
 participate in management and control — i.e., 
 every factory elects two representatives to 
 serve with the expert appointed by the Cen- 
 tral. Often we are told Socialism or Com- 
 munism will lead to a great increase in officials 
 and bureaucracy. Nogin proudly points out 
 that before the revolution about 2,500 offices 
 were devoted to the Textile business employ- 
 ing 15,000 clerks, managers and other officials. 
 Now the whole business is carried on in one 
 building, and employs only 4,000 persons to 
 do the clerical work. I had the chance of 
 seeing and hearing of other work of a similar 
 character, especially in connection with the 
 
TBADE UNIONS AND LABOUB 89 
 
 water works near Moscow. At these works 
 there was very great danger that the whole 
 water supply would stop owing to shortage of 
 fuel. This, not because fuel was not available, 
 but solely through shortage of labour and 
 means of transportation. The workers them- 
 selves thought of a Avay out : they secured 
 the material for a light railway and within 
 a very short time laid the lines and are now 
 able to transport all the peat and wood they 
 need. 
 
 Looking back, it seems to me certain that 
 given peace and freedom of trade, our Rus- 
 sian friends will succeed in building up a 
 Socialist industry. There will be rigid dis- 
 cipline, but as I conceive it, no hardship. No 
 one, outside Bedlam, has ever thought that 
 modern industry can be organised and kept 
 going by each workman being free to work 
 in his own sweet way : like a football team we 
 have understood that each person has a place 
 to fill and must fill such place to the very best 
 of his power. But mass production, pro- 
 duction for use, the elimination of all waste, 
 the clearing away of all competition and the 
 substitution of emulation and co-operation 
 must in a country like Russia result in abund- 
 ance for all. Russia can only show us the 
 way though, if she is allowed freedom to work 
 out her own salvation, and the one service 
 British Labour is able to render her is to see 
 
90 WHAT I SAW IN EUSSIA 
 
 that the Allied Governments cease from striv- 
 ing to injure and hinder her in her struggle 
 towards Communism. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 CHILDREN AND EDUCATION 
 
 There is one outstanding thought in connec- 
 tion with my short stay in Russia which never 
 leaves me, and that is the conditions under 
 which I found children living. I saw them 
 at railway stations on the long journey to and 
 from Petrograd to Moscow, in small villages 
 on a drive 40 versts out of Moscow, and in 
 the streets of the two capital cities ; and no- 
 where in Russia at any time did I see children 
 who in appearance or physique could match 
 the terrible specimens of child life I saw in 
 Cologne in February, 1919. That children in 
 Russia suffer hardships and privation from 
 cold, hunger and disease is only too true. 
 Typhus, cholera, smallpox are epidemic 
 diseases which carry off old and young indis- 
 criminately in Petrograd and Moscow. The 
 Soviet Councils have put forth every effort to 
 save the children : nowhere else in the world 
 
 91 
 
92 WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA 
 
 in times of disorder or days of peace has any 
 Government endeavoured to do more. I have 
 met scores of critics who condemn the Soviet 
 regime root and branch, but, w^hen pressed, 
 even the most bitter critic is obhged to con- 
 fess that within the narrow hmits of their 
 means, and these are miserably small owing to 
 our infamous blockade and the subsidised 
 wars, the Bolsheviks, led by Lunacharsky the 
 Minister for Education, have done everything 
 possible to preserve the life of the children, 
 both mentally and physically. 
 
 It is the joyous gift of play these Russian 
 children possess which from start to finish 
 when meeting them captured my imagination. 
 Whether looking at the weirdly dressed crowd 
 of boys and girls which thronged round me 
 on my arrival at Moscow in a vain endeavour 
 to carry my bags, or standing, as occasionally 
 I did, outside St, Saviour's Cathedral watch- 
 ing crowds of laughing, shouting children of 
 all ages skating, toboganning or sliding, it was 
 always the same. Want and suffering had 
 not, could not quench their spirits or damp 
 their ardour in striving to get joy out of life. 
 Even the elder children who, on occasion, 
 would be seen assisting the adults in snow- 
 clearing, appeared to look on the task as 
 something out of which amusement should be 
 obtained. 
 
 In East London I have often seen children 
 
CHILDREN AND EDUCATIOlSr 93 
 
 gather round foreign sailors, Chinese and 
 others, and get amusement from their strange 
 appearance : on at least two occasions I re- 
 ceived a similar kind of attention from children 
 in Moscow. Although dressed in a very long 
 fur coat with a Russian cap, the children 
 understood I was a stranger and so made of 
 me a sort of post around which they slid, 
 skated and tobogganed, chattering, laughing 
 all the time, and, as I imagined, challenging 
 me to talk. Every day during my stay the 
 river Moskva was frozen over and thus became 
 a playground covered at certain times and 
 places with children, who appeared not merely 
 capable of enjoyment, but easily able to enjoy 
 themselves. 
 
 Under other and less favourable conditions, 
 it was possible to see how children lived. At 
 mid-day every day children by the hundred 
 could be seen going to food centres and bread 
 stores, waiting in long queues, sometimes for 
 hours on end in bitterly cold weather : others 
 were to be found in pubhc restaurants getting 
 their mid-day meals. Very few restaurants or 
 food stores were as efficiently equipped or 
 anything like as clean as in this country, and 
 the long wait was a wearisome business. 
 
 In none of the children did I see a sign of 
 depression or lack of mental or physical 
 vigour. The most favourable conditions for 
 seeing children were in the great theatres and 
 
94 WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA 
 
 concert halls, especially on Sundays, when it 
 would appear as if all the musical and dramatic 
 talent of Russia was enlisted for the purpose 
 of giving entertainment and pleasure to the 
 children. Nowhere else in the world is more 
 done for children, no other children in the 
 world enjoy dancing and singing more than 
 these young Russians, it seems to be in their 
 blood : very soon they get to know the names 
 of dancers, singers and actors, and applaud 
 and cheer them with as much zest and vigour 
 as older people. 
 
 It would be a mistake to think that theatres 
 are used only for amusement : they are also 
 used for educational pxirposes. So far, cine- 
 mas are not much used owing to shortage of 
 materials. There are great difficulties to be- 
 overcome before the " movies " are used as in 
 other countries. When these difficulties are 
 removed by the establishment of trade rela- 
 tionships with the outside world, the moving 
 picture will be utilised to the very fullest 
 extent for amusement and education. The 
 story of humanity will be told in pictures, and 
 heroic deeds recorded. There will, however, 
 be no glorification of bloodshed and violence ; 
 no appeal to race or religious bigotry and 
 hatred : the cinema will be used to teach 
 citizenship and love of humanity. 
 
 There are creches, boarding schools, vil- 
 lages and townships all devoted to children : 
 
CHILDBEN AND EDUCATION 95 
 
 the feeble-minded, mentally deficient, are for 
 the first time in Russia being properly and 
 humanely cared for. I like to remember in 
 connection with work amongst children that 
 many women who have little or no sympathy 
 with Socialism of any kind, feel compelled to 
 give their services on behalf of education and 
 care for the future generation. It is women 
 of this sort who have materially helped to 
 organise the "children's town" which has 
 been set up at '" Tsarkoe Selo " near Petro- 
 grad — a place that was formerly used as the 
 Czar's town or village. It is a wonderful 
 place where everything is done to bring bright- 
 ness and knowledge into the lives of children. 
 The Bolshevik leaders are deadly enemies 
 of ignorance : they know their greatest foes 
 are to be found amongst those millions of 
 ignorant illiterates, left as an heritage by the 
 Czardom : therefore they organise to spread 
 knowledge, especially among children. The 
 work, however, of every school and college is 
 heavily handicapped through lack of school 
 materials, pencils, paper, reading and other 
 books. But in spite of this deficiency, many 
 teachers continue to work hard and persevere. 
 Unhappily some teachers are not willing to 
 help : many sabotage the new schemes ; some 
 are hopeless reactionaries ; others are quite 
 ignorant of the first elements of education. 
 Before the revolution the number of teachers 
 
96 WHAT I SAW IN BUSSIA 
 
 and their capacity was extremely limited : 
 great eflPorts are being made to supply this 
 deficiency ; training centres are being es- 
 tablished. 
 
 Most residential schools in Moscow are very 
 small. I should think forty was about the 
 outside number in many of them. I yield to 
 nobody in my knowledge of English schools : 
 I have seen all sorts of public and private 
 schools — Mill Hill, Eton, Shrewsbury, and 
 scores of Poor Law schools, besides hundreds 
 of ordinary day schools. Consequently when 
 visiting these schools in Moscow I could not 
 be other than surprised how small they were 
 and how limited in every way compared with 
 our Poor Law schools. They looked and 
 were, very mean, and in this they would have 
 rejoiced the heart of the middle and upper 
 class ratepayers in this country, who are 
 always complaining that too much money is 
 spent on the children of the poor. Yet the 
 buildings, for size, light and air did remind 
 me a little of the houses at Eton where the 
 upper class boys live, but only because there 
 seemed less cubic space than the numbers 
 warranted. 
 
 For all this no intelligent observer who 
 looked either at children or homes could but 
 be agreeably astonished that so much has been 
 attempted and so much done ; and no one 
 seeing the general attitude of the children 
 
CHILDEEN AND EDUCATION 97 
 
 towards the teachers and the teachers towards 
 the children could fail to realise that much, 
 very much of the work was a labour of love. 
 The children were proud to sing, recite and 
 dance and the teachers proud of their pupils. 
 In all schools we were greeted with what is 
 now the " National Anthem " — " The Inter- 
 national." Sometimes it was pathetic to look 
 at these little ones straining their childish voices 
 trjang to impress us with the words, 
 
 " Then, comrades, come rally, 
 The last fight let us face, 
 The Internationale 
 Unites the human race." 
 
 ^Vhatever else may be slurred over, I am 
 sure the meaning of these words is quite 
 thoroughly explained and understood by the 
 children who sing them. 
 
 At one school which I visited in company 
 with several other Press representatives, we 
 were entertained by singing, dancing and re- 
 citing. Amongst other things sung were some 
 nursery rhymes and folk songs with dances. 
 Although none of us understood the language 
 we soon caught the tunes and now and then 
 a word. Being as much a child as any of 
 them I suddenly thought I would like to join 
 in a game which consisted of dancing round 
 
98 WHAT I SAW IN BUSSIA 
 
 in a ring — very similar to our children's game 
 of " Poor Jenny is a- weeping," but in the 
 Russian game one child calls out another and 
 they dance together in the centre of the ring. 
 Of course I got taken out and took out others, 
 and then thought " Plang the language, I will 
 teach them ' Ring a ring of Roses ' and ' This 
 is the way we go to school,' " and very soon 
 with the aid of an interpreter we were singing 
 children's songs as in England. We were a 
 merry party and as one of my friends as old 
 as myself said " Language is no bar where 
 children are concerned." When we left they 
 all crowded to the windows waving hands and 
 shouting goodbye. 
 
 I should like to say another word for the 
 splendid women who conduct these schools. 
 Like so much else in Russia it is a case of 
 making bricks without straw. In many places 
 the sanitary arrangements have entirely 
 broken down because of shortage of fuel; in 
 others there can be no proper school owing 
 to the same cause ; and everywhere there is 
 lack of every kind of necessary equipment. 
 Great efforts are made to inculcate cleanliness 
 and the value of each child's body, but alas, 
 there is very little soap ; tooth brushes, combs 
 and hairbrushes are also very scarce, but the 
 teeth are considered of primary importance 
 and much trouble is bestowed upon them. I 
 have no doubt an Enghsh Local Government 
 
CHILDREN AND EDUCATION 99 
 
 Board Inspector or other expert going round 
 would easily condemn the whole system root 
 and branch, but I found myself wondering, 
 if starting from nothing, in the midst of civil 
 war, a blockade, and foreign wars, my 
 countrymen and women would have done so 
 well. In any case I am just lost in admiration 
 at what I have seen accomplished by these 
 men and women, many of them without any 
 previous training for the work they are now 
 doing so well. 
 
 There is much discussion as to the wisdom 
 or otherwise of co-education. I am a preju- 
 diced observer as I have always advocated this 
 system. I did not see anything in the rela- 
 tionships of these boys and girls different from 
 what I have seen elsewhere, except that 
 neither children or grown-ups on the Con- 
 tinent are as prudish and self-conscious as we 
 are about natural functions and sex matters 
 generally. In any case, I saw no sign or ges- 
 ture of which I could complain ; but I did see 
 a freedom from restraint, a natural sort of 
 relationship amongst the boys and girls that 
 seemed to show they were being trained to 
 respect themselves and to be respectful to 
 others. 
 
 On three occasions I had a meal with the 
 teachers and nurses in these boarding schools, 
 and at every school I visited was able to see 
 the food supplied to the children. At each 
 
100 WHAT I SAW IIST RUSSIA 
 
 dinner there was always poultry or meat : the 
 evidence of friend and opponent and of my 
 own eyes is quite conclusive that what there 
 is of good nourishing food is first shared 
 amongst children, next amongst invalids, the 
 general public coming last, and with the great 
 shortage this is a very bad last indeed. I never 
 saw milk or poultry served at a meal anywhere 
 in Russia but at these schools, except when a 
 small quantity was served at our own evening 
 meal. Visits to these schools were planned 
 overnight by Barry or myself. 
 
 In order that mothers may go to work 
 creches have been established all over the 
 towns and in some villages. These are run on 
 model lines and also mainly by women who 
 formerly belonged to the middle and upper 
 classes. I thinlc these are among the best 
 nurseries I have seen anywhere, they are not 
 overcrowded and are light and airy. If limg 
 power is a sign of health, then these babies 
 are extremely vigorous. Great care is taken 
 to prevent infection. The matron asked me 
 and my friends to put on overalls before 
 entering a ward. 
 
 One special thing in connection with all 
 this work for children is the fact that there 
 are no distinctions of class or nationality. 
 Every child in Russia is looked upon as a child 
 of the community. To obtain its right to sit 
 down at the table provided by the Russian 
 
CHILDREN AND EDUCATION 101 
 
 people a child must not prove itself legitimate 
 oi- illegitimate : neither is a child penalised 
 because of the sins or virtues of its parents. 
 At the same time parents are not allowed to 
 shirk responsibility, but exactly contrary to 
 what happens under the L.C.C. and other 
 education authorities in this country, children 
 are first o(£ all cared for and the responsibility 
 of either men or women for the child is settled 
 afterwards. It was a real pleasure to find that 
 the principle of ' ' care for the children ' ' had 
 been adopted as a public policy. 
 
 One day, in company vsdth some friends, 
 I interviewed Comrade Lunacharsky, the 
 Minister of Education. He lives with his wife 
 and family in rooms in one of the huge build- 
 ings in the Kremlin. Like all other ministers, 
 I found him in a huge, rather cold office, very 
 busy, surrounded by officials and children. He 
 not only has to care for and organise education 
 for children, but has also to administer the 
 whole business of educating the army, navy 
 and adult civil population. In addition he has 
 charge of all public buildings and monuments, 
 and is on the committee which is charged with 
 the maintenance of churches and other historic 
 buildings. He would be classed as an agnostic, 
 yet he has a true reverence for all ancient and 
 religious buildings. I heard him deliver a 
 splendid address to public officials at a meeting 
 called to celebrate the triumphs of the " Red " 
 
102 WHAT I SAW IN EUSSIA 
 
 Army : his one plea was for public service as 
 the aim and object of life. 
 
 When we saw him in his office, he had only 
 just recovered from a short illness : in spite 
 of this he was all eagerness to tell of his 
 schemes for better education. He was a little 
 cynical and bitter about England and our 
 ruthless blockade ; sad and angry at the effects 
 of this action of our Government in preventing 
 the children of Russia getting their chance : 
 but all the time he expressed his confident hope 
 that the difficulties of to-day would be over- 
 come. He explained at length the condition 
 of the country when he took over the work 
 of education. We heard from him disgraceful 
 stories of how teachers who had served under 
 the old regime refvised to work when the 
 Soviet Government was established and de- 
 liberately set to work to hinder the spread of 
 education. Pie seemed convinced that educa- 
 tion would only really start when the young 
 people now being trained were ready to enter 
 the schools. 
 
 Kindergarten schools are not schools as we 
 know them and up to eight years of age the 
 word education is not used : after that age the 
 boys and girls go to schools for varying degrees 
 of training up to the age of sixteen when the 
 choice is made whether to go on to university 
 or to industrial training. This is decided not 
 by ordinary examination, but by talks between 
 
CHILDEEN AND EDUCATION 103 
 
 teachers and the scholar concerned so that boys 
 and girls may learn all there is to know of 
 the profession they hope to follow. There are 
 no schools in Russia for separate castes or 
 classes ; neither are there class colleges, but, 
 like the comnion sense people they are, those 
 responsible for education do not attempt to 
 force all children through one machine made 
 sort of education ; neither do they judge 
 capacity merely by examination papers, or the 
 work of teachers by the number of children 
 that pass a particular examination. 
 
 One thing is taught almost hourly : that is 
 the honourable character of all useful work. 
 There is no teaching of the doctrine of ' ' get 
 on," no putting before the child as a worthy 
 object of life the ambition to become rich and 
 powerfid or even to enter public life in order 
 to get personal power. All education is de- 
 signed for the purpose of making the child 
 understand that labour of every sort that is 
 useful is honourable : Literature and Art, 
 History and Science are all taught with the 
 one object of making people useful. Or- 
 dinary work in factory and Avorkshop is taught 
 by allowing older boys and girls to go to these 
 places as part of their school time. Girls are 
 sent to hospitals and other pubhc institutions 
 to learn how to cook, wash and clean up. 
 Education is not separated from work or work 
 from education, the object being to show that 
 
104 WHAT I SAW IN BUSSIA 
 
 one is dependent on the other. I repeat the 
 one outstanding lesson taught all children is 
 the fact that labour of all kinds for the 
 service of the nation is honourable and 
 lives lived dependent on the labour of others 
 are dishonourable. 
 
 Economics are taught in an elementary 
 manner : history is taught as something which 
 concerns humanity and not as a matter of 
 primary importance only to one's own nation. 
 Consequently internationalism is the keynote, 
 and in order to emphasise this the children are 
 taught by experience that in their schools 
 and in their relationships with each other, 
 no matter to what class or race or creed 
 their parents may have belonged, they, as 
 children born in a socialist state, have no 
 rights, no privileges, except those which are 
 shared by all. 
 
 As children grow up the question of ad- 
 vanced education arises. This is very much 
 hindered owing to lack of teachers. When 
 peace is signed there will be a great opening 
 for teachers from other countries, especially 
 for those capable to take part in what is called 
 higher education. There are evening classes 
 going on now in every industrial centre in the 
 big towns ; new colleges are being established, 
 but all lack teachers and professors. In order 
 to cope with the great shortage of capable and 
 efficient administrators, schools for training 
 
CHILDREN AND EDUCATION 105 
 
 these have been established and thousands of 
 young people are being trained in order to 
 become local go^•e^nment servants, teachers, 
 diplomats, etc. 
 
 Lunacharsky tells with great pride that his 
 department for education spends more money 
 per head than any other Government in the 
 world : that since the revohition they have 
 established 62,238 first grade schools, and 
 3,780 other schools in thirty departments ; in 
 addition .5,800,000 primers and 2,000,000 
 books for teaching have been distributed ; 
 2,458,000 children have received clothes, and 
 9,4'50,000 pairs of boots have been given 
 away. The schemes for the future training 
 and care of children are \'ery ambitious. If 
 the Bolshe\'iks retain power all Russians will 
 know all there is to be known about Russia, 
 as the years of training will be spent in dif- 
 ferent parts of the coimtry. Not only will 
 they get knowledge of their own country, they 
 Avill also travel abroad. Ships are to be char- 
 tered and parties of three hundred children at 
 a time will visit the world. People may ask 
 ^\ ho is to pay : it is proposed to use the natural 
 I'esources of Russia for this and all national 
 purposes. But in addition the Government 
 of Russia will be the cheapest in the world : 
 there will be no gilt or ginger bread courts 
 and puppets, no imperialist armies and navies. 
 The whole material wealth of this great people 
 
106 WHAT I SAW IN EUSSIA 
 
 will be spent on the service of all men, all 
 women and all children ; there will be plenty 
 to spare for all. 
 
 But great as his achievements are amongst 
 children, Lunacharsky has also done splendid 
 work amongst adults in addition to evening 
 classes and extension lectures. A regular 
 campaign has been carried on in army and 
 navy. It is ignorant folly for critics of the 
 labour armies in Rxissia to write and speak of 
 these as uneducated dupes of Trotsky. Noth- 
 ing is wider from the truth : from being the 
 most ignorant army in the world the Russian 
 army is rapidly becoming the most intelligent 
 and best educated. The defeat of Koltchak 
 and Denikin, the marvellous fortitude and 
 patience, heroism and effort shown by the Red 
 armies is due in a large measure to the fact 
 that they knew what they were fighting for. 
 Before the Bolsheviks gained power only 15 
 per cent, of the army could read ; now over 
 65 per cent, are able to read and reason. 
 Every day newspapers are distributed; every 
 day classes are held ; and every day small sec- 
 tional meetings take place at which discussions 
 are started for the purpose of spreading in- 
 formation. There never can be an imperialistic 
 Russia while this sort of thing continues, be- 
 cause these soldiers are told the bare simple 
 truth about politics. It is this which will 
 make the labour armies successful : the men 
 
CHILDBEN AND EDUCATION 107 
 
 now regimented for labour are not dumb 
 driven cattle : they are intelligent human 
 beings accepting all that is involved in an army 
 of labour in order to accomplish certain well 
 defined ends. 
 
 I have not dealt with the religious education 
 here as I do so in another chapter. I can only 
 say here that in a society where opinion on 
 official religion is as it is in Russia, there can 
 be no official religion. All that those of us 
 who care for religion are entitled to ask is that 
 religion shall have its chance. 
 
 The priests and ministers who desire to 
 teach ethics should be allowed to do so freely 
 and without hindrance of any kind : but as I 
 see this matter in connection with children I 
 must put on record my belief that Lunachar- 
 sky and his colleagues are living up to the 
 gospel conveyed in the words, " Suffer the 
 little children to come unto me," for they 
 are giving to e\er\' child full opportunity to 
 develop the highest and best. Unlike the 
 British and German system, education is a 
 means not for personal ambition and ag- 
 grandisement but for social ser^•ice and if it 
 is true we '' worship God by doing good, that 
 deeds not words are understood," then these 
 Bolsheviks, feared and hated because they are 
 feared, are the true Christians of to-day, for 
 they hold aloft the beacon light of truth, that 
 each child's life is of equal \'alue and that each 
 
108 WHAT I SAW IN EUSSIA 
 
 boy and girl born in the world has an equal 
 right to share in all that the great world of 
 humanity has to give. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 LAW AND ORDER 
 
 The Russian revolution in its inception was 
 the least terrorist in its methods of all modern 
 upheavals ; in fact, it was a triumph for 
 pacifism. This triumph was gained owing to 
 the fact that common soldiers refused to kill 
 common work people ; that Cossacks refused 
 any longer to treat Russian citizens of Petro- 
 grad or Moscow as of different flesh and blood 
 from themselves, but instead fraternised with 
 them and joined in overturning autocracy. 
 
 Not only was this so in regard to relation- 
 ships between ordinary men in and out of 
 uniform, but all at once, throughout the 
 length and breadth of Russia a new thought 
 prevailed. Officials, however highly placed, 
 however gaudily decorated, were no longer 
 sacrosanct — no longer to be considered as per- 
 sons whose word was law. Consequently 
 when these officials endeavoured to urge 
 
 workers in uniform to fire on their own flesh 
 
 109 9 
 
110 WHAT I SAW IN BUSSIA 
 
 and blood, they were informed that if any 
 shooting was to be done it would be against 
 the officers. Anarchial as this doctrine sounds 
 in the ears of those in authority, ultimately it 
 is the one and only law of life which wiU save 
 mankind. 
 
 It is authority, man made, man supported, 
 or rather accepted and tolerated, which holds 
 the world in chains. There will be no more 
 wars, no more bloody revolutions, once the 
 workers in all countries absolutely refuse under 
 any conditions to kill one another. I am cer- 
 tain that, apart from all other economic ques- 
 tions, apart from all questions of terrorism or 
 anything else, the one and only thing which 
 has rallied the Churchills, Clemenceaus and 
 other supporters of capitalism against Soviet 
 Russia, is this fact, that once the workers of 
 the world can be made to understand that, 
 by complete unity of action, and refusal to 
 obey the order to shoot, they can emanci- 
 pate themselves, the whole business of 
 capitalist society is at an end and the social 
 revolution will be an accomplished fact. 
 
 That day is not yet. In Russia, as every- 
 where else, it was and is an active virile self- 
 confident minority which for the past two and 
 a half years has carried on the revolution. All 
 the time, they have been beset by hosts of 
 internal and external foes. Lenin and his 
 friends were no sooner settled in power than 
 
LAW AND ORDER 111 
 
 all the underground forces of espionage, cor- 
 ruption and conspiracy were let loose by the 
 capitalist governments of all countries. Sad 
 to say, either directly or indirectly, British, 
 American and French citizens have been most 
 guilty in this nefarious business. If ever 
 peace is made and publication of documents is 
 allowed, the Russian people will be in a posi- 
 tion to indict through their agents the Govern- 
 ments of Europe and America, with almost 
 every crime in the decalogue. Lying, thiev- 
 ing, false swearing, vice of every description, 
 coupled with murder, of all these crimes some 
 of these agents have been guilty, and all for 
 one purpose — the overthrow of the Soviet 
 System. I repeat these facts here because it 
 is necessary to bear them in mind when trying 
 to form a judgment as to the wisdom or right- 
 ness of the establishment of the " Extra- 
 ordinary Commission." 
 
 Now, in all I have said, I must not be taken 
 as argxiing in defence of Defence of the Realm 
 regulations in England or elsewhere, but I do 
 maintain that conditions may justify even a 
 Socialist revolutionary Government in using 
 means it despises to safeguard itself and the 
 revolution entrusted to its care. Born, as it 
 were, in the midst of a terrible crisis, the com- 
 mission for tracking down crime has gained 
 an unenviable notoriety, and its doings have 
 been lied about in the most flagrant manner. 
 
112 WHAT I SAW m RUSSIA 
 
 One small case is typical of many others : 
 again and again the world has been told that 
 a celebrated anarchist, " Peter the Painter," 
 who was wanted in England for alleged bm-g- 
 lary and murder, was head of this Extra- 
 ordinary Commission. This statement was 
 intended to prove that the lives and 
 liberties of law-abiding citizens were con- 
 trolled by a criminal, I was informed 
 by an anti-Bolshevik woman, well known in 
 this country, who had been arrested by order 
 of the Commission, that this story was too 
 ridiculous to reply to, as everybody in Russia 
 acquainted with affairs knew that although a 
 man named Peters was one of the chief offi- 
 cials on the Extraordinary Commission, he 
 was not an anarchist and was not the man said 
 to be wanted in England. I give this friend's 
 authority because it adds the weight of inde- 
 pendent and rather hostile testimony to that of 
 the Government itself. 
 
 The present head of the Extraordinary 
 Commission is Djerzinsky. I visited his head- 
 quarters in company with some other friends. 
 He appeared to me to be as mild a mannered 
 man as any of the Chief Police Officials in this 
 country ; in fact the men I have met who are 
 at the head either of the police or killing busi- 
 ness always appear to be amongst the most 
 urbane and courteous I meet in any walk of 
 life. And Djerzinsky is no exception to the 
 
LAW AND ORDEE 113 
 
 rule. He was very willing to answer questions 
 and willing to produce documents. He is 
 about middle height with rather a military 
 appearance, and dressed in uniform. There 
 was nothing swagger about him, and without 
 his uniform he would have appeared as most 
 oflBcers appear when in mufti — just an ordinary 
 person. 
 
 When, later on, I met others of the Com- 
 mission and saw them more or less in a 
 group, I wondered how the sort of legend 
 which has grown up around them was pos- 
 sible; and then I tried to think of Lord 
 French in Ireland, General Dyer at Amritzar, 
 and our own Sir Basil Thomson here in 
 London. Quite as horrible things can be said 
 of these three from the point of view of 
 violence in putting down ci\'il trouble, and 
 the work of espionage and spying generally. 
 
 I first of all tried to discover how the Com- 
 mission got appointed. It is appointed by the 
 Supreme Council and consists of fifteen mem- 
 bers. A presiding board of four sits in 
 Moscow and Committees sit in other towns. 
 A Committee may decide matters if there is 
 full agreement amongst them, but in the event 
 of disagreement the whole Commission of 
 fifteen must be called together to decide the 
 matter under dispute. Its work is manifold. 
 At first its exclusive business was to deal with 
 counter revolutionaries, and without a doubt 
 
114 WHAT I SAW IN BUSSIA 
 
 many thousands of people were imprisoned 
 merely on suspicion, amongst them Menshe- 
 viks, Social Revolutionaries, Cadets, Czarists 
 and foreigners. The duty of the Commission 
 was to track down persons likely to be centres 
 of disaflfection or to be thrown into the net 
 of the disaffected. It was a difficult busi- 
 ness, because many people, especially some 
 of those belonging to other Socialist and 
 Anarchist groups, at times professed loyally 
 to join the Bolsheviks, only later on to be dis- 
 covered plotting for the overthrow of the 
 Government. Supporters of the old regime, 
 clerics connected with the Church, and people 
 with no fixed opinions, and many aliens, also 
 joined in as loyal to the new order, to be 
 found later on as agents provocateurs for 
 conspiracies. 
 
 There was also a great deal of work to do in 
 the army, where the Czarist officers, joining 
 up very often as privates, made themselves the 
 centres for promoting desertion and betrayal in 
 the face of the enemy. Sometimes batches of 
 " Red " troops have surrendered to Denikin, 
 or in the North to our own officers, being led 
 to do so by Czarists who had professed to be- 
 come Bolsheviks. 
 
 In these circumstances, in the early days of 
 the revolution, there was the " Terror," which 
 resulted, according to statistics, in the execu- 
 tion of about 8,000 persons. It is claimed for 
 
LAW AND OEDEK 115 
 
 the Commission, and thus for the Soviet 
 Government, that not one of these were exe- 
 cuted without somte form of trial; that it is 
 untrue to say that at any time there had been 
 indiscriminate kiihng or torture. On this latter 
 point, the authorities are very emphatic, and 
 here I am only giving their statement. I had 
 hoped to bring back a complete set of figures, 
 but these were not available when I left. The 
 materials for getting them together are in the 
 office of the Commission and will be published 
 later on. 
 
 But it is a mistake to think that these fifteen 
 men were brought into existence merely to 
 hunt down counter revolutionaries. They had 
 a great work to do in dealing with illegal 
 trading, bribery and corruption generally. 
 No one will deny that under the Czarist regime 
 bribery and corruption amongst the official 
 classes was not merely prevalent but was 
 accepted as the ordinary every day condition 
 of life. All at once to break with this con- 
 dition of things would seem to be impossible, 
 an<l the Soviet Government has had the very 
 greatest difficulty in putting it down. They 
 believe, however, that through the work of the 
 Commission this is being done. 
 
 As to illegal trading, I have dealt with it 
 elsewhere. Neither the Government nor the 
 Commission hopes to succeed in thoroughly 
 putting an end to this until food is more plenti- 
 
116 WHAT I SAW IN EUSSIA 
 
 ful and the general conditions of life more 
 tolerable. 
 
 But there was another method of bribery by 
 which opponents hoped to break the spirit 
 and power of the Government, and that was 
 by undermining the morale of the soldiers by 
 means of money bribes, and it is here where 
 Allied gold came in and where it was spent so 
 very plentifully. Of course this sort of thing 
 is very difficult to track down and takes a very 
 large number of men and women in order to 
 do it thoroughly. 
 
 Then there was the industrial side of life. 
 Until peace is signed and there is a general 
 amnesty and the story is written as a matter 
 of history, no one will be able to tell com- 
 pletely of the ramifications of the Allied con- 
 spiracy which time after time almost brought 
 the munition works at Tula and Putiloff to a 
 standstill. Long ago, many of the leading 
 agents of the Allies recognised that the Soviet 
 Government would not be pulled down by 
 fighting, and so they set to work in the indus- 
 trial centres to create unrest and dissatisfac- 
 tion owing to the shortage of food. These 
 agents were able to corrupt other agents, who 
 in turn went into the factories and spread their 
 poison, declaring that with peace there would 
 come plenty, and that the responsibility for 
 war and shortage lay with the Soviet Govern- 
 ment. 
 
LAW AND QBDEB 117 
 
 But in addition to all this work, for the first 
 two years the Commission had an even more 
 difficult task on its hands, and that was the 
 business of restoring law and order throughout 
 the country. I sometimes read what people 
 have to say about Russia, and listen to speeches 
 on the same subject. What always strikes me 
 is how few people realise that with the Baltic 
 Provinces cut off Russia is still a country of 
 thousands of miles in extent of territory and 
 vsdth a population of over 100 millions. When 
 the Czarist regime, with all its police and mili- 
 tary and its centuries old domination, was 
 broken up, lawlessness broke out everywhere. 
 Some bands of men roamed the country, 
 pillaged when they could, lodged where they 
 chose, executed vengeance, and by means of 
 terrorism extracted the means of life from 
 those unwilling to give it. To stop the doings 
 of these brigands and bring the country back 
 to some sort of order was also the work of the 
 Extraordinary Commission, and life through- 
 out Russia is more safe because of its work. 
 
 To-day a greater task has been entrusted to 
 it, and that is to assist in restoring health, 
 clearing away disease, and to teach the people 
 that it is a duty they owe each other to take 
 the necessary means for preserving health. 
 
 Finally, no one imagines for a moment that 
 the Extraordinary Commission was the final 
 word the Bolsheviks have to say on the 
 
118 WHAT I SAW IN EUSSIA 
 
 methods by which they desire to maintain 
 proper relationships between the various mem- 
 bers of the community. In the future it is 
 proposed that the new People's Courts of 
 Justice shall be the dominant factor in the 
 preservation of law and order. When peace is 
 restored, the Secret Police will be abolished 
 — although the Secret Police in Russia are 
 probably the most numerous and well 
 organised in any country of Europe. At the 
 same time it is necessary to say that this latter 
 will depend on the attitude of Foreign Govern- 
 ments towards the Soviet. If Russia is left 
 alone to work out her own life, then the Secret 
 Police will not be needed, but if, as seems 
 probable, the Allies intend to continue their 
 work of stirring up hatred and strife, the 
 Secret Police will have to remain. 
 
 For internal disputes, the People's Courts 
 of Justice will have the biggest voice. Before 
 the revolution to go to a Law Court on any 
 sort of business was a very expensive matter. 
 Now there is one uniform public Law Court, 
 for civil and criminal cases. Each district is 
 provided with its own district Law Court. All 
 matters relating to crime, offences, disputes, 
 personal rights, are subject to the jurisdiction 
 of the district court. The only cases that are 
 not allowed before these courts are cases con- 
 nected with counter revolution, sabotage, etc. 
 
 It is worthy of notice that most of the cases 
 
LAW AND ORDEE 119 
 
 now are criminal cases. Formerly, of course, 
 the ci\il courts were kept going for the pur- 
 pose of settling questions connected with pro- 
 perty. In spite of the loosening of all social 
 ties, there are less people brought before the 
 courts to-day than ever before on account of 
 offences of this character. 
 
 The person set to act as magistrate or judge 
 over his fellows is elected. The permanent 
 judges are elected by the Soviets and are 
 elected from persons who have theoretical and 
 practical knowledge of the law. But they 
 must also ha\e some experience of working 
 class organisation. Permanent judges are 
 elected for indefinite periods and are always 
 liable to be recalled by the Soviet by which 
 they are elected. Judges are also assisted by 
 assessors and these are chosen from persons 
 wlio possess elective rights. The lists of these 
 are made up by workers' organisations, such as 
 village and rural So\aets, and are subject to 
 the Revision of the Executi\e Committee 
 of the Soviets. Lists are made for a period of 
 six months, and each assessor takes part in six 
 sessions without the right to resign his respon- 
 sibility. While acting as an assessor, he is paid 
 the local rate of wages, or such renmneration 
 that may be equal to the maximum rate of 
 living expenses for the locaHty in which he acts. 
 
 It may be taken as a rule that prisoners have 
 a better chance before these Courts than they 
 
120 WHAT I SAW IN BUSSIA 
 
 formerly had before the courts under the 
 Czar. It is worthy of notice that for crimes 
 against property compulsory labour is nearly 
 always imposed; for all other offences fines 
 predominate, except in the case of miir- 
 der, where of course a fine is never imposed. 
 There have been, I am told, a few cases where 
 persons found guilty of murder have only been 
 doomed to loss of freedom and to compulsory 
 labour. 
 
 For those who have been found guilty of 
 manufacturing and selling intoxicating drinks, 
 eighty per cent, are fined and eighteen per 
 cent, imprisoned. The death penalty for any 
 person either in the army or in civil life has 
 been abolished, and this I understand is being 
 rigidly adhered to. 
 
 As to general maintenance of order, what 
 struck me was the absence of any paraded 
 authority anywhere. I am well aware that 
 authority was present, probably in every big 
 road, but it did not obtrude itself. One had 
 to look to discover the man or the woman who 
 was exercising the duty of policeman. In 
 Petrograd I saw the women police paraded, 
 and very smart indeed they looked in their 
 uniform. In Moscow the work is mainly done 
 by what appear to be ex-soldiers, but I should 
 think it was the easiest thing possible to pre- 
 serve order in either of the big cities. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 PRISONERS AND CAPTIVES 
 
 Before this book is published, something 
 like 1,000 British people and their dependents 
 will have returned from Russia. About 120 
 of these will be British soldiers, sixty of whom 
 were confined in a monastery or prison in 
 Moscow. Speaking relatively, only a few of 
 the others have endured internment, either in 
 camp or prison. I believe a few prisoners still 
 remain in Russia and are likely to remain there 
 until Peace is signed. 
 
 If the Government agrees to carry out the 
 requests put forward by the jingo press of 
 this country and publishes stories of outrages 
 and brutalities told by the refugees who have 
 just returned, I think we all should demand 
 that with these stories shall be printed a com- 
 plete statement, showing how many British 
 people and their dependents have resided in 
 Russia during the period of the revolution. 
 
122 WHAT I SAW IN BUSSIA 
 
 how many of these have been imprisoned or 
 interned, for what periods and for what 
 offences, and how many British have been 
 executed ; together with a statement showing 
 how many have died of disease, the nature of 
 the disease, and the age of the deceased person. 
 
 There is nothing like facts to blow away the 
 fairy tales of fiction mongers. No one with 
 any knowledge of facts will deny that many 
 British subjects endured untold hardship and 
 suffering ; some of it partially due to the treat- 
 ment they received at the hands of the Soviet 
 Government or its agents. No one will deny 
 that some British people have been interned 
 and imprisoned without trial and for offences 
 which, to say the least, were charged against 
 them only on suspicion. But when all this is 
 admitted, the bare fact remains that the bulk 
 of British residents were free to live where 
 they pleased ; could obtain employment and 
 earn their livings on the same terms as 
 Russians ; that at least sixty of the British 
 soldiers were never treated as prisoners, but 
 were allowed complete freedom of movement ; 
 that even those who were imprisoned or 
 interned were allowed to receive parcels of 
 food from the outside; and at holiday times, 
 such as Christmas, were allowed to amuse 
 themselves by means of concerts. 
 
 I met the first British prisoner I saw in 
 Russia on the streets of Moscow. When I 
 
PBISONEBS AND CAPTIV ES 123 
 
 asked how he was getting on, he repHed, 
 "Very well indeed." 
 
 I next came into contact with a dozen of 
 these prisoners at the Vicarage in Moscow and 
 their condition was such that I expressed sur- 
 prise at their healthy appearance. With one 
 accord they proclaimed, what I afterwards dis- 
 covered to be the fact, that their healthy 
 appearance was due, in large measure, to the 
 work of the British chaplain in that city, who 
 spared neither money nor pains to secure not 
 only for the British, but for all foreign na- 
 tionals, extra food and nourishment. It must 
 be understood that in doing this he was com- 
 mitting a grossly illegal act, which was winked 
 at by the authorities, solely because he was 
 acting for and on behalf of British prisoners. 
 
 The prisons themselves and internment 
 camps were not prisons in the ordinary sense, 
 that is, places originally built as prisons, 
 so far as ordinary alien prisoners were con- 
 cerned. The British officers and the so-called 
 volimteers, who served with them, were 
 housed in what had formerly been a monastery. 
 No doubt the sanitary arrangements were ^•ery 
 bad, but so, unhappily, were the sanitary 
 arrangements everywhere. You cannot ha^•e 
 frost to the extent they have it in Moscow 
 during the months of February and March, 
 coupled with an almost entire absence of fuel, 
 
124 WHAT I SAW IN BUSSIA 
 
 without pipes of every sort and kind getting 
 choked and frozen up. 
 
 It will be said that I am smoothing over the 
 very great shortage of food. I have no inten- 
 tion of doing anything of the kind. I have 
 said over and over again that in Russia every- 
 body was hungry, and prisoners were hungry 
 as well as everybody else. The only difference 
 between the prisoners and the rest of the popu- 
 lation was that the former were, in fact, better 
 fed. First, because the British chaplain, Mr. 
 North, borrowed money right and left, and 
 with this bought food wherever he could lay 
 hands on it, and secondly because during the 
 last few weeks the British Government was 
 allowed to send in food for the special use, 
 not only of the prisoners but of the British 
 residents generally. 
 
 I spent one evening in the so-called prison 
 of the sixty "prisoners" who were free. I found 
 them complete masters of their surroundings. 
 They were in excellent spirits, ready to 
 quarrel with me on every point of detail and 
 principle concerning Bolshevism. I was much 
 amused with them, because of their actual con- 
 dition and the condition under which their 
 friends in England thought they were living. 
 
 One boy, complaining of his food, declared 
 that often they did not get all the bread they 
 were entitled to, but was immediately cor- 
 rected by another who said, " Yes. But when 
 
PBISONEB8 AND CAPTIVES 125 
 
 we don't get bread, we get flour." I asked if 
 they wanted me to be sorry for them because 
 they were obliged to cook their food, seeing 
 they had nothing to do all day, but to keep 
 themselves and their so-called prison clean, 
 and amuse themselves, and were occasionally 
 called upon to make bread. The night I hap- 
 pened to go I saw their week's ration of meat. 
 They said that sometimes it was reindeer meat 
 and sometimes other meats. That which I 
 saw looked very good, and I am quite certain 
 that during no one of the four weeks I was in 
 Russia did I receive anything like that ration. 
 I also saw French and other soldier prisoners 
 all being treated in the same manner. I have 
 tried to find a new word for such prisons and 
 prisoners, for certain it is these men enjoyed 
 a better life than the Commissar in whose 
 charge they were placed. The prisoners shared 
 their extra food with him, thus proving his 
 need and their sufficiency. I can only call 
 them free prisoners. 
 
 For all this, it is not nice to be detained in 
 a foreign land, and as most of these soldiers 
 were very young, I can understand how sick 
 and miserable they really were ; but my real 
 sympathy was for those in prison, the officers 
 and men the Government stupidly refused me 
 permission to see. 
 
 I visited one prison where the correspond- 
 ent of a London newspaper was detained. 
 
 lO 
 
126 WHAT I SAW IN BUSSIA 
 
 I can only describe this as a sort of able-bodied 
 workhouse. It was clean, much cleaner than 
 most institutions in Russia, and the oflBcers 
 seemed very much on a level with the officers 
 of a casual ward or able-bodied institution in 
 this country. But as for a prison ! It was a 
 little difficult to understand where the prison 
 came in. In addition to seeing the particular 
 prisoner I went to see, I saw lots of others, 
 and what astonished me most of all was the 
 sort of freedom of conversation and the atti- 
 tude of the prisoners towards their jailors. 
 The Governor was a young man — I should 
 think about thirty-six years of age. He could 
 not speak English, but was a very well edu- 
 cated man, indeed, much better educated 
 than the average workhouse master I have met 
 in this country, and certainly superior to the 
 old gentleman who had charge of me during 
 the few days I was in Pentonville prison some 
 years ago. But prisons and prisoners in 
 Russia are not looked upon with quite the 
 same feelings as prisoners are looked upon in 
 more highly civilised countries. There is a 
 kind of allowance made for the causes which 
 bring them there, which appears to me to 
 affect their whole treatment. 
 
 Who would have dreamed from what we 
 have read of the brutality of these Bolsheviks 
 that the prisoner whom I went to see would be 
 brought to me in his own clothes, permitted 
 
PBISQNEBS AND CAPTIVES 127 
 
 to sit side by side with me in the prison, and 
 to talk and discuss without any interference 
 from officers or anyone else ! I was kept wait- 
 ing till he came in from walking exercise, look- 
 ing fresh and jolly. 
 
 We talked away for a fairly long time, and 
 only when we wished to ask questions did 
 anyone speak to us. The prisoner, who had 
 been charged with entering Russia without 
 permission, and with having bribed an 
 official, was sentenced to detention until 
 Peace was signed. There was no such thing 
 as vengeance or even punishment in his treat- 
 ment. He was allowed to study three different 
 languages. Had he chosen he would have been 
 engaged as an English tutor to teach English, 
 which most of the people in authority desire 
 to learn. By giving his parole not to attempt 
 to escape he would have been allowed freedom 
 to go where he pleased in the prison. 
 
 I contrasted this treatment with the treat- 
 ment dealt out to political and other prisoners 
 in this country, and especially with the treat- 
 ment given to suffragettes and Irish prisoners, 
 to the C.O.'s and the aliens charged or 
 suspected of offences during the war, and the 
 many thousands of aliens interned for no 
 offence at all except that accidentally they 
 were born outside England. In the midst of 
 the Suffrage agitation one of my boys was sent 
 to prison for breaking a window — a very 
 
128 WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA 
 
 heinous offence no doubt and one requiring 
 very severe punishment. During his term of 
 imprisonment, his wife, mother and myiself 
 and his baby visited him. He was barricaded 
 off, as if either he or we would do some harm. 
 We were allowed to talk only in the presence 
 of a warder, and on saying goodbye he was not 
 allowed even to touch his baby. 
 
 I shall be told that these are the rules of our 
 prisons. So they are, but no such rules pre- 
 vail — certainly for political offenders — in Bol- 
 shevik Russia, not even when these politi- 
 cal offenders belong to the country which has 
 done its worst to crush the Soviet Republic. 
 
 There is another side to the prison question 
 also, to which all of us should give some atten- 
 tion. The Bolsheviks do not think that it is 
 possible to cure the evils of civilised life by 
 punishment. The big thing they have done 
 by allowing illicit trading and marketing to be 
 carried on, is worthy of a great deal of atten- 
 tion from us all, because it is the keynote to 
 their whole policy. They believe that human 
 beings are bad or good because of their sur- 
 roundings. They believe that greed and 
 avarice, thieving and lying are just a part of 
 that system of life which depresses and re- 
 presses the natural desires of mankind. They 
 think it is quite right that people should wish 
 to have the best obtainable in the world ; that 
 men and women should desire to get the fullest 
 
PBISQNEBS AND CAPTIVES 129 
 
 life that is possible, and they believe that much 
 of the crime with which all modern societies 
 are surrounded is to a large extent due to the 
 fact that in modern society as at present 
 arranged, there is not enough of the best of 
 life to go round. 
 
 Consequently their prisons, so far as they can 
 manage it at present, are modelled on better 
 lines than those of the old regime ; not at all so 
 good as they hope they will be in the near 
 future, but certainly better than under the 
 Czardom. The fortress of Peter and Paul, 
 with its hideous dungeons below the bed of the 
 river in Petrograd has at last gone out of busi- 
 ness. There is now no long trail of prisoners 
 travelling the long weary road to Siberia and 
 its horrible mines. What prisons are now 
 used are reformative in their character, but 
 all are based on the principle that prisons 
 ought to have no place in modern society, be- 
 cause in modern society the inducement to do 
 the right thing should outweigh the induce- 
 ment to do the wrong. 
 
 I heard many stories of ill treatment of 
 prisoners while in prison from various quarters 
 and none of these do I wish to belittle. I 
 believe it is absolutely true that in some 
 prisons aliens have been badly treated. But 
 when all is said and done, on every occasion I 
 tried to track this kind of thing down, to find 
 out its truth or otherwise, the final answer I 
 
130 WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA 
 
 almost invariably got was that the treatment 
 in prisons depended very largely on the sort 
 of chief officials in control of the prisoners. 
 But, as I have said, meeting prisoners, talking 
 to them, hearing their stories, I alvpays felt 
 they had much about w^hich to be sorry for 
 themselves and that nothing could get rid of 
 the fact that they -were more or less prisoners 
 in a strange land. 
 
 On the other hand, it cannot be gainsaid 
 that the bulk of the aliens in Russia were 
 free to share all the same amenities of life as 
 Russians ; but when any of these aliens took 
 part or were suspected of taking part in 
 counter revolutionary conspirings, then the 
 authorities put them in prison or internment 
 camp, and in doing so only followed the 
 example of all other European and American 
 Governments. 
 
 It is not for us English, and certainly not 
 for the Americans, to complain because people 
 are put in prison without trial and only on 
 suspicion. In both countries thousands of 
 people have been dealt with in that way. No 
 one can defend it, excuse it, or palliate it. But 
 all of us can prevent ourselves from being 
 hypocrites in denouncing it in the one case and 
 supporting it in the other. The position of 
 people like myself is quite clear. I should no 
 more dream of adopting the methods which 
 Britain adopted under D.O.R.A. than I 
 
PBISONEBS AND CAPTIVES 131 
 
 should fly, but then, I am not a Government. 
 Thank goodness ! It is the British Press with 
 its hypocritical denunciations of the Bolsheviks 
 that I have in mind at this moment. They 
 have supported every infraction of liberty by 
 the Government. They have hounded the 
 Government on to " intern them all," to pass 
 laws which make it almost impossible for many 
 foreigners to set foot in this country, and these 
 are the people who denounce the Bolsheviks 
 for putting political offenders and aliens in 
 prison. 
 
 The sixty British soldiers already mentioned 
 could often be found in theatres and concert 
 halls. You would find them occasionally on 
 the streets during the day and the evening, 
 and each carried a pass, which protected him 
 wherever he might be found. 
 
 I do not believe there is any other Govern- 
 ment in the world that would have treated 
 prisoners in this way. In addition, all the 
 prisoners I saw, whether in or out of prison, 
 were dressed in ordinary clothes. British 
 soldiers in khaki, and civilians in ordinary 
 attire. When I remember the German 
 prisoneis — ^the huge patches with which we 
 decorated their clothes — the anxiety with 
 which we endeavoured to make them as ugly 
 as possible, and the punishment meted out to 
 any person who bestowed a little kindness 
 upon them, I am tempted to say, that in 
 
132 WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA 
 
 the matter of treating at least some prisoners, 
 these atheist Bolsheviks carried out the 
 Christian precept of loving their enemies. 
 
 I know I shall be told I am glossing over or 
 trying to gloss over some of the evils and 
 indignities which British people suffered. I 
 am doing no such thing. They lost their 
 property and their means of living — ^those of 
 them who were rich — just as the wealthy 
 Russians did, no more, no less. They received 
 the same treatment as all other Russian 
 citizens. Those of them who fell under the 
 bann of the law did so, sometimes through 
 their own fault, at other times through misfor- 
 tune; but the outstanding fact remains that, 
 as I have already stated, they did receive a 
 different kind of treatment from any prisoners 
 1 know of under a similar set of conditions. 
 
 One other thing in connection with 
 prisoners. Before leaving Copenhagen I saw 
 a telegram which stated that smallpox, diph- 
 theria and spotted typhus had broken put in 
 the British prison camps. All I can say is that 
 once more I call for figures. It is all very well 
 for such statements to be made ; all very well 
 for people to talk at large about deaths from 
 these diseases in prisons and prison camps. I 
 ask in this respect for figures. How many 
 British people suffered from these diseases; 
 how many died and their ages. If these figures 
 are published, we shall find that there has been 
 
PBISONERS AND CAPTIVES 133 
 
 gross exaggeration, both as to the amount of 
 the disease and the results, but the main thing 
 I want to convey with regard to prisoners and 
 captives is this — that in my dehberate judg- 
 ment, the Bolsheviks have led the way in being 
 more humane, more considerate in their treat- 
 ment of these people than any other Govern- 
 ment I know. Their ability to do right has been 
 circumscribed within the limits imposed by the 
 infamous blockade. No medicines, no anaes- 
 thetics, no means of treating diseases, have left 
 them, of course, without the means of properly 
 dealing with sick prisoners. The effect of this 
 blockade which prevented medicines and 
 anaesthetics going into Russia was seen when a 
 British soldier was obliged to submit to an 
 operation for removal of his eye without an 
 anaesthetic. Hundreds of thousands of Rus- 
 sians obliged to undergo operations were 
 treated in the same manner. 
 
 My claim for the Russian Government is 
 that, within the limits of their means, and these 
 limits were imposed from the outside by the 
 infamous blockade and war, the Bolshevik 
 Government has set the world an example as 
 to the methods of dealing with prisoners. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 ABOUT PEOPLE 
 
 There is much talk about Russia being a life- 
 less nation ; that all industry is at a standstill 
 and that the nation is dying. This may be 
 so : I shall here write just what I have seen 
 of people in the streets, in railway trains, 
 theatres, factories, churches and public places. 
 In Petrograd I stayed at the Astoria hotel 
 which faces a big square in which is situated 
 " Isaac Cathedral." I stood at the window 
 at 7 o'clock in the morning and occasionally 
 went backwards and forwards watching people 
 from 7 o'clock to 9 o'clock cross this square, 
 and the thing that kept recurring in my mind 
 was, if there is no work being done in Petro- 
 grad, if all industry is dead, why are all these 
 people up so early in the morning? why are 
 some of them hurrying? in fact, why are they 
 about at all? If the whole population is dying 
 of disease and is worn out because of lack of 
 food, why should people take the trouble 
 
 «34 
 
ABOUT PEOPLE 135 
 
 whilst snow is falling to leave the shelter of 
 whatever homes they possess at this hour of 
 the day? 
 
 Later on I was in the working class district 
 and saw the trams literally packed with people 
 as are the trams on the Thames Embankment 
 morning and evening. To me it is the most 
 extraordinary thing if all industry is at a 
 standstill that this should be so ; but not 
 merely the observation of m>' eyes but other 
 facts convinced me that although it is true 
 capitalist enterprise and industry has stopped 
 in Russia, national and mvmicipal industry 
 must have largely increased ; not increased 
 sufficiently to give people all that they need, 
 but increased sufficiently to enable the Bol- 
 shevik Government to maintain in the field 
 an army consisting of millions of men, to 
 transport, feed and clothe this army in such 
 a manner as to enable them to overthrow 
 their enemies on every front. This tre- 
 mendous fact appears to be overlooked by 
 those who write and speak of Russia as a dead 
 nation. It may be that this tremendous effort 
 has left her in a very weak condition — but it 
 is not a dead nation, not even a dying nation 
 that has carried through the tremendous work 
 which has been accomplished in Russia this 
 two and a half years. 
 
 Again, a little later in the day, I was out 
 in the streets and saw multitudes of people 
 
136 WHAT I SAW IN BUSSIA 
 
 going backwards and forwards, hither and 
 thither, not in an aimless dejected manner 
 but as if they had business to do, as if there 
 were some purpose in their being out. It is 
 true the closed shops give a funereal appear- 
 ance to the streets, but apart from this there 
 was nothing to show that work of some kind 
 was not being carried on. 
 
 As in the case of the children, so in that 
 of men and women. Again and again I 
 stopped the friends who were with me and 
 asked them to look at little groups of people 
 we came across. They did not look anything 
 like so dejected or pasty-faced as the men and 
 women in Cologne, indeed not at all so bad 
 as many people I have met in towns in Eng- 
 land. This does not mean that I am asserting 
 that everybody is well fed, that everybody has 
 enough. But there is something in the Rus- 
 sian constitution that enables it to endure, a 
 certain something which has enabled it to 
 endm-e the tragedy of the past few years and 
 still to carry itself with a certain amount of 
 dignity and strength. A Russian once said 
 to me, " You cannot kill the Russian people 
 by hunger, they will live if obliged to subsist 
 on raw corn and water only." 
 
 Travelling away down from Petrograd to 
 Moscow, going through the trains, talking 
 with the people, it was easy to discover how 
 much there was to complain oi and how 
 
ABOUT PEOPLE 137 
 
 much there was to be sorry for in the prevail- 
 ing conditions of life. In spite of everything, 
 though, there was always a cheeriness which 
 seemed to keep them going and which made 
 it impossible for conditions to destroy either 
 their vitality or their hopes. 
 
 I wish I could give an adequate picture of 
 my railway journey out and home to see 
 Peter Kropotkin. He lives at a little place 
 60 versts from Moscow. Although so short 
 a distance it takes many hours to do the 
 journey, partly owing to lack of fuel, but 
 also largely owing to the fact that at each 
 station an enormous crowd attempts to get 
 into the trains already overcrowded. There 
 is nothing Uke it in all the world that I know 
 of. 
 
 I am told that even before the revolution 
 trains were crammed in this sort of fashion. 
 Picture to yourself an ordinary closed railway 
 waggon with no seats, with doors in the centre 
 and people obliged to climb up the best way 
 they can and then stand for hours on end 
 packed like sardines. This is how part of the 
 train is made up. Other parts are made up of 
 ordinary carriages, not exactly like ours, but 
 very similar, except they are all " corridors " 
 and each ordinary carriage is warmed by a 
 wood fire. But most carriages these days are 
 not heated at all. When a carriage gets full 
 the steps are loaded with people, when these 
 
138 WHAT I SAW IN BUSSIA 
 
 are full, men women and children stand on 
 the couplings and climb on to the roofs. 
 Women are as daring as the men. Occa- 
 sionally some clamber on to the roofs of the 
 carriages and lie there full length ; others 
 climb up on the engine tender, and as the 
 train moves along it looks like a great mass 
 of moving humanity. 
 
 At one station where we stopped, another 
 train was being marsfhalled in order to pass. 
 Sitting in our carriage we were able to watch 
 quite a little comedy going on as to who should 
 occupy a certain step. Most of the passengers 
 were peasants and most of them looked in good 
 physical condition. All of them were travel- 
 ling to town to do a little business, sometimes 
 illegal business. Consequently all have parcels 
 of one sort or another. On this occasion a 
 woman about 80 years of age, well dressed and 
 of good physique, a typical peasant woman, 
 had occupied one step with two parcels and 
 had planted herself in the centre. Her parcels 
 were occupying the room of two other people. 
 Again and again a man or woman would come 
 up and remonstrate with her, demanding that 
 she should hold her parcels or that they would 
 hold a parcel each and stand on the step, but 
 by the use of strong language and on one 
 occasion by the use of her hands, she managed 
 to keep everybody oflf; it certainly looked as 
 if she were going to remain in triumphant pos- 
 
ABOUT PEOPLE 139 
 
 session — a sort of one step monopolist. The 
 hooter was sounded and off the train started : 
 just as it got well going an old boy whom she 
 had beaten off ten minutes earlier, darted out 
 from a corner, jumped on to the step, took 
 hold of the pai'cel, put it under his arm, and 
 smiled benignly at the lady who we could see 
 was giving him the length of her tongue for 
 his pains. But he was getting to Moscow 
 anyhow and I suppose cared little for the 
 insults she was hurling at his head. 
 
 Our own train on this occasion was simply 
 a sweltering mass of humanity. When we 
 poured out on to the platform at Moscow it 
 seemed that the crowd would never get 
 through. We talk of crowds at cup-tie 
 matches, but this crowd appeared to exceed 
 them — and yet everybody went along quietly 
 without any hurrying, for hurrying is the 
 last thing that Russians ever will take part 
 in. 
 
 I am not sure how people pay for travelling. 
 I know they have to get tickets and I know 
 too that you pass certain officials to get on to 
 the platform, but it seemed to me that tra- 
 velling was pretty easy and that a considerable 
 number of people at the villages were engaged 
 in travelling a good part of their time — at 
 least it takes a good deal of time to go twentj- 
 or thirty miles. 
 
 In the theatres it is also a wonderful sight 
 
140 WHAT I SAW IN BUSSIA 
 
 to see the people. I am amazed when I read 
 of how carefully I was chaperoned in Moscow 
 and what great care was taken to see that honour 
 was done me. One set of spell binders assert 
 that Moscow was illuminated in my honour ; 
 another that I only visited places chosen for 
 me. The following proves how silly and imtrue 
 such statements are. One night, as usual, 
 without giving any previous notice, I suddenly 
 said that I would like to go to the theatre 
 and asked my press colleagues if they would 
 go with me. We asked our interpreter to 
 ring up and try and get us seats. He came 
 back beaming : we were to have the Czar's 
 box at the national theatre. So off we went 
 only on arrival to discover that a couple of 
 working class families had got there before us 
 and we had to be content with the next box, 
 which was, of course, just as good. 
 
 I was not much interested in the play — which 
 was one of Strindberg's — mainly because, al- 
 though I know a little of the plot I could not 
 understand the language, and as there was 
 enough tragedy %vithout seeing it acted I re- 
 fused to get interested. But I was intensely 
 interested in the audience which was in the 
 main working class : there was no mistaking 
 it — ^in dress, demeanour, and everything else 
 it was an audience of workers, and best of all 
 their women and children were with them. 
 They occupied the whole house from the floor 
 
ABOUT PEOPLE 141 
 
 to the ceiling and showed their appreciation 
 of the acting by caUing the actors before the 
 curtain. 
 
 In the interval we went down to the refresh- 
 ment rooms and mixed with the people there ; 
 and again it was impossible for me, may be 
 because of my ignorance, to discover the 
 misery and dejection which we are told is 
 imiversal. It was impossible for me to be- 
 lieve that all the people I was meeting 
 in theatres and elsewhere were communist 
 officials, better treated, better fed, than every- 
 body else. If this were so, then all I can say 
 is that the mass of the population appears to 
 be made up of such officials. 
 
 All the theatres are alike. They are crowded 
 each night and the repertoire is changed week 
 by week. I saw the great Russian opera, 
 Boris Goudonov, and was able to appreciate 
 what I suppose is a well-known fact that the 
 Russians are excellent judges both of good 
 acting and good music. I only saw one per- 
 formance of the ballet. It was a revelation 
 to me in the art of dancing. 
 
 There is a sort of story that there is nothing 
 going on in the way of intellectual life in 
 Russia at the present time. As a matter of 
 fact men like Gorki and Chertkoff are always 
 lecturing. Gorki gave a lecture on Tolstoi 
 one Sunday evening which was attended by 
 between two and three thousand people, and 
 
 II 
 
142 WHAT I SAW IN BUSSIA 
 
 although he is not a good lecturer, that is, he 
 speaks in a low voice and with very little ani- 
 mation, that great audience listened for over 
 an hour while he delivered his lecture in a 
 voice which it was difficult to hear in almost 
 any part of the hall ; but so intent were they 
 that during the whole period one might have 
 heard a pin drop. This audience was almost 
 entirely working class. 
 
 The road which lies along the outside of the 
 inner walls of the Kremlin, is I think, the 
 most crowded with people in Moscow. I have 
 crossed it at all hours of thie day and night, 
 sometimes on foot, nearly always in a vehicle, 
 and have always found a large number of 
 people about. On Sundays it appears to be 
 a kind of parade, even during the severe 
 weather which prevailed while I was there; 
 and once more I am bound to say that I saw 
 no sign of the terrible depression which other 
 people appear to have seen. 
 
 One other example : on the day I visited the 
 prison in which Mr. Keeling is interned, our 
 car broke down through bumping into a great 
 hole in the road. It looked as if we should 
 be obliged to walk the remainder of the dis- 
 tance : the driver, Fineberg and myself did 
 our best to shift the machine. We were sur- 
 rounded by a crowd of people of all ages, and 
 I had a good look at these. They were just 
 the same curious crowd that would gather 
 
ABOUT PEOPLE 143 
 
 round a breakdown anywhere in London, or 
 indeed in the world. They all had a remedy, 
 everyone gave advice to the driver, but no 
 matter what he did the old machine would not 
 move. 
 
 After thirty minutes or so a soldier of the 
 Red Army came up, spoke to the driver and 
 then turned to the crowd, and I suppose, sug- 
 gested to them that a little help was worth a 
 great deal of pity and that practical assistance 
 was worth much more than talk. Within a 
 few seconds at least a couple of dozen persons 
 surrounded the car, told the driver to start his 
 engine, and as he started, themselves gave a 
 huge lift and sent the machine flying out of 
 the hole. Quite a shout went up from the 
 crowd which had assembled and there were 
 very friendly greetings to myself from every- 
 body. 
 
 We were at least a couple of miles from 
 the centre, on the South side of the city, in 
 a part I had not been to before, which is 
 crowded with very poor people indeed. I 
 stayed for some minutes listening to the people, 
 and saw Fineberg exchanging conversation 
 with them. There was no hostility, there cer- 
 tainly was a great amount of friendliness ; and 
 as far as I could see there was no sign of de- 
 jection or absolute starvation. That want was 
 on their faces and that near by was much 
 typhus is true, people were also dreading the 
 
144 WHAT I SAW IN BUSSIA 
 
 coming of Spring because of the sort of Spring 
 diseases that break out. Everywhere though 
 there was life not death. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 PUBLIC HEALTH 
 
 Before going to Russia I was warned by 
 people I met in Scandinavia and Finland that 
 disease of every sort and kind was raging in 
 both Petrograd and Moscow ; that it was sheer 
 madness on my part to go into the country 
 without previously being inoculated against 
 half-a-dozen diseases. As it turned out I was 
 not inoculated and am thankful to say I left 
 Russia quite healthy, and during my month's 
 stay was not attacked by any of the prevailing 
 diseases. 
 
 There is no doubt at all that many thousands 
 of people have suffered, and many thousands 
 have died of typhus, spotted typhus and diph- 
 theria. It is also true that many thousands 
 more will die this spring when the thaw lets 
 loose the accumulated mass of refuse and dirt 
 which has been collected in frozen heaps in the 
 backyards and other parts of the big cities. It 
 needs to be pointed out that most of the big 
 houses in Moscow are central heated, and thus 
 
 145 
 
146 WHAT I SAW IN BUSSIA 
 
 water-pipes and sanitary arrangements are 
 kept going during the winter months. But 
 the past winter has seen such an absence 
 of fuel of every sort that the pipes in most 
 of the big houses have been completely 
 frozen during almost the whole of the winter 
 — and as many of these large residences are 
 now inhabited by three or four families where 
 formerly there was only one, it can easily be 
 imagined what a desperate plight people find 
 themselves in with the sanitary arrangements 
 out of order, and with no means of removing 
 refuse. The consequence was that the back- 
 yards become heaps of refuse which froze 
 where they lay. 
 
 It was fear of the consequences of what the 
 thaw would entail which compelled the Mos- 
 cow Soviet to issue the order that every citizen 
 should, when the thaw came, take his or her 
 part in the removal of this accumulated rub- 
 bish. 
 
 There are tens of thousands of other houses 
 in which there is precious little sanitary ac- 
 commodation at any time. As a matter of 
 fact, the great mass of Russians do not under- 
 stand how to use sanitary conveniences : many 
 have never seen a water closet or even earth 
 closets, and as in many parts of France, the 
 very crudest arrangements are considered suffi- 
 cient. In Russia sanitary conveniences are 
 even more crude than in the working class 
 
PUBLIC HEALTH 147 
 
 districts of France : consequently when there 
 is a shortage of fuel, shortage of food, coupled 
 with the usual very low sanitary standard of 
 life, it is only to be expected that epidemics 
 arising from filth should be the order of the 
 day. In addition there was very little soap to 
 be obtained owing to the absence of fats. I 
 am told, but I have no authority except hear- 
 say for the statement, that Russians as a rule 
 do not care to wash themselves too often, but 
 whether this be so or not, during my short 
 stay washing would have been impossible for 
 me had I not carried my own soap. As typhus 
 is a disease which is carried by lice, it is easy 
 to understand how everything conspired to 
 produce the sort of epidemic which has been 
 running through the country for a considerable 
 time. 
 
 In an interview with the Commissar of 
 PubUc Health — N. A. Semashko — he in- 
 formed me that in Moscow during the time 
 of my visit things were much easier with re- 
 gard to all diseases ; that in Moscow and 
 Petrograd the number of affected persons was 
 down to 5,000 ; that there was a daily average 
 for both towns together of 200 cases, and this 
 was steadily faUing. Both the Commissar 
 and his assistants were confident that with the 
 necessary disinfectants and a united effort on 
 the part of the people, it would be possible to 
 get through the spring without a very large 
 
148 WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA 
 
 increase on these figures. But he pointed out 
 that the springtime, even under the Czardom 
 was always a bad time for epidemics, especially 
 dysentery amongst children; he was very 
 hopeful however that under the Soviets a very 
 much reduced death rate would obtain than 
 under the rule of the Czars. 
 
 Semashko went on to describe how in the 
 provinces the business of Public Health was 
 being organised. He asked us to understand 
 that there had been very little local life in the 
 villages ; people were not allowed to interfere 
 too much in the local government of Russia : 
 consequently the Revolutionary Government 
 was not only obliged to set up administrative 
 machinery but was also obliged to supply the 
 necessary men and women for carrying on the 
 work. He expected to be able to establish 
 Public Health Committees in every village, 
 township and city throughout Russia. On 
 these he was going to secure a majority of 
 women as members because he was convinced 
 that in Russia it was women who must first 
 be taught the value of keeping their own 
 bodies and the bodies of their children clean. 
 It was a tremendous task which he had under- 
 taken and he was glad to have this responsible 
 work entrusted to him, but it would tax all 
 the resources, not merely of himself but of 
 thousands of efficient workers throughout the 
 country, before the masses of people realised 
 
PUBLIC HEALTH 149 
 
 the value and necessity of bathing and clean- 
 liness generally. At present owing to the 
 blockade and war it was impossible for the 
 Government to supply the necessary means 
 for securing baths or even a decent supply of 
 water in some places, and there was certainly 
 little or no soap for anybody. 
 
 We come right up against the blockade 
 here, because it was not merely a question of 
 the things I have mentioned, but disinfectants 
 and medicines of all kinds had been cut oflp, 
 so that his department worked with its hands 
 tied behind it. For all this, very much had 
 been done and very much more would be 
 done wthin the next few months. They pro- 
 posed to establish a Public Health Week 
 during which, right throughout the country, 
 public meetings and lectures would be held 
 and the people encouraged to use all the means 
 at their command, small as these may be, for 
 the purpose of building up the health of the 
 people. 
 
 He was careful to point out that the Russian 
 Government was very anxious indeed to pre- 
 serve the life of children. There are child 
 welfare exhibitions in some towns. I went 
 round one in Moscow with two fellow jour- 
 nalists : the exhibition was quite as good as 
 an5rthing I have seen in England and from a 
 visit any intelligent mother could learn all 
 
150 WHAT I SAW IN BUSSIA 
 
 there is to learn about childbirth and the 
 proper treatment of babies. 
 
 In connection with this department there 
 are big stores, where the clothing and special 
 food necessary for a child are supplied free. 
 This sort of thing does not yet apply every- 
 where, but Semashko hopes very soon to 
 have a child-welfare exhibition in every cen- 
 tre, not on a large scale but big enough to 
 teach the things needed to be known about 
 children. 
 
 It will be a mistake, however, to imagine 
 that plague and pestilence is necessarily as- 
 sociated with the Bolsheviks. This Public 
 Health Commissar is deliberately of opinion 
 that the epidemics which have affected Moscow 
 and Petrograd are directly attributable to the 
 war and especially to the Red Army's having 
 come into contact with the armies of Denikin 
 and Koltchak. The authorities in Moscow 
 consider that while the Red Army has been 
 marching from victory to victory, they have had 
 working side by side with them an army of de- 
 voted men and women, a sort of army of health 
 whose business it is to fight disease. It is the 
 Communists who make up this army : their 
 work in times of epidemic is to bury those 
 who die of disease, disinfect clothes and dwel- 
 lings and generally take the lead wherever 
 danger is involved. It is on record that when 
 the Red troops took the town of Nicopol 
 
PUBLIC HEALTH 151 
 
 they found 9,000 persons sick with typhus ; 
 dozens of dead were lying in the streets, in 
 the cemeteries masses of human corpses were 
 being eaten by dogs. They appealed to Mos- 
 cow for help. Remember all this happened 
 under the Denikin and Koltchak regimes. It 
 is also stated that right throughout the Kazan 
 region unheard of suffering was being endured. 
 At Omsk 20,000 persons were discovered af- 
 fected by spotted typhus : over 400 dead 
 bodies were foiind unburied. It was expected 
 that cholera would break out at Kharkoff. 
 
 The Communists took this situation in hand 
 and first of all organised drastic measures to 
 keep the Red Army free from disease. A new 
 scheme drafted by the Public Health Depart- 
 ment in co-operation with Lenin, was put into 
 operation. Each regiment was called upon to 
 elect a private who, with a doctor and the 
 colonel, was held responsible for the good 
 health of the regiment. All the sanitary ar- 
 rangements were in their charge and they were 
 made responsible for the proper cleanliness of 
 billets and camps. A public health order of 
 the day was issued as follows : " To be dirty 
 is a crime against the revolution." Arrange- 
 ments were made for special isolation stations 
 capable of dealing with about 30,000 cases 
 every day and providing beds for 5,000 pa- 
 tients. I repeat this all happened in districts 
 recaptured from the reactionists who were. 
 
152 WHAT I SAW IN BUSSIA 
 
 responsible for the terrible conditions with 
 which the Bolsheviks were called upon to deal. 
 
 These theoretical Bolsheviks have also been 
 practical enough to set up travelling baths 
 which go round with their trains. No one, in 
 certain parts of Russia is allowed to enter a 
 train without first taking a bath. They have 
 also made arrangements by which over a 
 hundred thousand men of the Red Army are 
 able to get a bath each day. The soldiers are 
 given, not one set of clothing, but several, in 
 order that clothing may be frequently 
 cleansed. The result of all this is that to a 
 very large extent the Red Army may be 
 considered an army of health ; whereas the 
 Denikin and Koltchak armies by spreading 
 disease may be called the armies of death. The 
 task of the Red Army was to clear away disease 
 brought into existence by the sheer neglect of 
 the leaders of the counter revolution. 
 
 A Research Department under the super- 
 vision of Professor Lazareff , who has a big staff 
 of men and women experts under him, is in 
 full working order studying how to prevent 
 and deal with disease. They have also been 
 devising means for overcoming the effects of 
 the devilish invention used by the Allies and 
 the White Army against the Bolsheviks, an 
 invention which blinds the soldiers in the 
 trenches. These Russian speciaKsts consider 
 
PUBLIC HEALTH 153 
 
 that they have now devised means by which 
 this weapon is now quite ineffective. 
 
 In a thousand and one ways, health ser- 
 vices are being set up, but the one cry 
 from everybody — specialists, doctors and 
 nurses — was : ' " Throw down the blockade ; 
 let us have the means for alleviating suf- 
 fering ; let us have the means for preventing 
 disease. It is impossible to establish effective 
 public health administration unless we have 
 these means : we can only get them from out- 
 side." Again and again protests were uttered 
 against the infamy of the AUies, and especially 
 against the International Red Cross, for its 
 failure to send into Russia the means for 
 dealing with the woimded and those stricken 
 with disease. It was pointed out that the 
 Denikin and Koltchack armies were always 
 well suppHed; that again and again the Bol- 
 sheviks had occupied a village or a to\vn only 
 to find all the medical stores burnt up, and I 
 was asked : ' ' By what sort of right did the 
 International Red Cross, that gathers money 
 from all sorts and conditions of people, defend 
 the policy of assisting one side only in a great 
 struggle like that through which Russia was 
 passing? "' It was also stated that in many 
 places doctors were not allowed to remain to 
 treat either the wounded or those suffering 
 from disease, but that often they were carried 
 
154 WHAT I SAW IN EUSSIA 
 
 off by the White Armies at the point of the 
 bayonet. 
 
 Semashko and his friends have no fear of 
 to-morrow if only they are allowed their 
 chance, but as with everji;hing else in Russia, 
 the future depends on peace. Given peace, 
 this work of reorganising the civilian life of 
 the people will be taken in hand, and there is 
 no reason at all why Russia should not become 
 one of the healthiest of the nations of Europe. 
 
 With regard to housing : that is a problem 
 in Russia as everywhere else. The wretched 
 working class dwellings of the great towns are 
 themselves a standing example of the disgrace- 
 ful manner in which the Czarist Government 
 neglected the life of the people. Almost 
 imder the walls of the Kremlin and within 
 sight of the most magnificent cathedral in 
 Moscow there are slum districts, the like of 
 which I should think could scarcely be found 
 anywhere else in the world — except in the very 
 worst quarters of industrial towns. Many of 
 these have been destroyed since the revolution, 
 having been pulled down and the wood used 
 as fuel. Semashko hopes that these will never 
 be rebuilt. He hopes that great areas of the 
 cities will be cleared, for good and for all, and 
 that an altogether new housing scheme will be 
 adopted. This is, however, for the future : 
 the whole work of his department, as far as 
 efficiency and effectiveness is concerned, I 
 
PUBLIC HEALTH 155 
 
 repeat, depends on peace. There can be no 
 labour or material available for housing until 
 the Red Armies become Labour Armies. 
 
 In spite of living in the midst of war, pes- 
 tilence and famine, these Russian Bolshevists, 
 theorists and dreamers as they are called, are 
 proving they know how to organise and that 
 with idealism they also carry a complete 
 knowledge of all that is needed not merely 
 to govern but to administer the social life of 
 a great nation by the co-operative help of the 
 whole body of citizens. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 MOSCOW TO LONDON 
 
 I LEFT Moscow on Saturday, February 28th, 
 at mid-day. Accompanying me were two 
 British soldiers who were being released owing 
 to ill-health. They had been placed in my 
 charge by the Soviet Government. We were 
 a merry party on the platform. To see us off 
 were the British chaplain and two or three 
 other friends of the soldiers, my interpreter 
 and guide, Comrade Rosenberg, and my col- 
 league Griffin Barry, who looked very dis- 
 consolate and sorry for himself as he waved 
 good-bye when the train started. Several 
 officials were to travel with us to Petrograd on 
 their way to Reval. We also had the company 
 of Michael Farbman and .Toe Fineberg. As 
 on my way out, places had been reserved 
 in an ordinary carriage, in no way different 
 from any other coach on the train. As usual a 
 great crowd of people were in every compart- 
 ment. 
 
 156 
 
MOSCOW TO LONDON 157 
 
 We had just settled down to make ourselves 
 comfortable when the train stopped. We 
 took no notice of this, as trains in Russia stop 
 at all sorts of times and places for no appar- 
 ent reason. However, this time there was 
 a reason : something had gone wrong with our 
 carriage which compelled the officials to ask 
 us to get out. The coach was taken off, the 
 brakes would not act. As there was no other 
 coach available, the problem we had to face 
 was how to find room for eight or nine persons 
 in a train already over full, with people hang- 
 ing on to buffers, steps of carriages, and also 
 on the footplate and tender of the engine. A 
 saloon coach, formerly used on the Siberian 
 railway, with accommodation for six people, 
 was part of the train. It already had six pas- 
 sengers, but we asked to go in and were 
 allowed to do so. and tra\elled for twenty 
 hours, fifteen of us in a saloon built for six. 
 We had no cooking utensils for tea making, 
 so once more got through by borrowing first 
 the Samovar, then cups and knives. Unfor- 
 tunately, we could not borrow sleeping places, 
 so when night came we loosened our clothes, 
 wxapped ourselves in our coats and lay do^^^l 
 on the floor with leather bags for our pillows. 
 None of us suffered much, except from stiff- 
 ness. I caught cold, which is usual for me 
 whenever I sleep in abnormal places, and I 
 only tell this story to controvert the lying 
 
 12 
 
158 WHAT I SAW IN EUSSIA 
 
 statement that great plans were made for my 
 comfort and everything done to convince me 
 that J as we say in East London, "everything 
 in the garden's lovely " in Russia. 
 
 I stayed only a short time in Petrograd, 
 meeting Zinovieff and a dozen other friends. 
 I must tell of one first-class banquet I enjoyed. 
 The occasion was my last night in Russia. An 
 anarchist comrade who is helping Bill ShatoflP 
 in the work of organising the railways had just 
 brought 45 trucks loaded with food into Petro- 
 grad. He asked me to supper, as he said, "to 
 have a really nice meal." Well, I arrived at 
 the a;ppointed time and found my meal was to 
 consist of some bacon, butter, white bread and 
 tea. This was the luxurious meal in my 
 honour, and it was a luxurious meal for anyone 
 in Russia, and enjoyed by us all, and the story 
 of it is written down here to give the lie to the 
 statement that commissars and their friends 
 live on the fat of the land. Neither of these 
 friends had seen such bacon, butter and cheese 
 for months. I had — but even so, the white 
 bread and boiled bacon was more delicious 
 than anything I had tasted for over a month. 
 I went around Petrograd, looked at the 
 churches, open spaces, most of all at the 
 people, found the streets and everywhere else 
 cleaner than in Moscow. 
 
 We left Petrograd at nine in the morning, 
 reached the border at about 10.30, and found 
 
MOSCOW TO LONDON 159 
 
 ourselves once more the guests of Commissar 
 Kokko and his wife. We were obhged to wait 
 for the Finns till nearly five, so again a jolly 
 party foregathered in the tiny dining room of 
 their cottage. Here I saw the one and only 
 diamond ring during my stay in Russia. A 
 young woman acting as adjutant was the 
 wearer. She could speak a little French and 
 English, so we were able to talk. The British 
 soldiers enjoyed the hours of waiting and were 
 able to understand a little how the Bolshevik 
 army was managed. While we waited an 
 alarm was raised that a few himdred yards 
 away the Finns were attacking. It turned out 
 the White Finns were only engaged attacking 
 birds. 
 
 The same formalities took place crossing as 
 had been gone through when I entered Russia, 
 except that the Finnish ofiicers resolutely re- 
 fused to allow the British soldiers to cross. Very 
 reluctantly I went over alone and was driven 
 to Raijoki, where I telephoned to the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief of the District and secured 
 permission for my friends to join me. The 
 three of us on meeting at once went to the 
 refreshment room, where I am sure we injured 
 our digestions mopping up tea with milk and 
 lovely white rolls and butter. The rolls, being 
 new, were, of course, very nice and very indi- 
 gestible. I ought to mention that when I 
 went up the bank of the river and left my 
 
160 WHAT I SAW m BUSSIA 
 
 friends, a group of about a score of my Red 
 friends, led by Comrade Fineberg, gave me a 
 cheer and shouted messages of greeting to 
 British comrades. It was nice to hear in that 
 country and under such conditions the famihar 
 clarion greeting " Boots " and " Spurs." 
 
 Our troubles began at Raijoki Station. I 
 took rail tickets for Helsingfors. Then sudden- 
 ly an officer appeared in order to search us and 
 our luggage. After this, the soldiers were told 
 they must go to Terijoki for quarantine, but 
 I could travel on. So once more we parted, I 
 intending to see the British Minister at Hel- 
 singfors and get my friends out. Alas for 
 poor me ! I only got about twenty miles on 
 the road when four bright looking youths 
 appeared. They were fully armed and accom- 
 panied by an officious sort of officer person, 
 who ordered me to alight. After some 
 minutes, during which I tried to make a fuss, 
 I got out, to be told that they were instructed 
 to take me to quarantine. As is usual with the 
 most Christian person as well as with pagans 
 like myself, my temper rose, and for some time 
 I sat in a cloak-room refusing to move. I 
 knew the quarantine station was a good mile 
 and a half or so away and did not intend to 
 walk. This at last daviTied on my captors, and 
 they produced a droshky, into which four of 
 us and my bags tumbled, and off we went, 
 arriving at the camp about twelve midnight. 
 
MOSCOW TO LONDON 161 
 
 In my life-time, I have done "' time " for a 
 political offence. I have travelled for eight 
 weeks on an emigrant steamer, found myself 
 housed in an emigrant's house in Brisbane, 
 lived with a wife and family in the wilds of 
 Queensland, as a young man worked amongst 
 coal porters here at home ; but nowhere in all 
 the world have I come across so filthy a hole 
 as the so-called quarantine camp at Terijoki, 
 Finland. The walls of the huts were covered 
 with the dust and dirt of ages, the bed rugs 
 and clothing had the appearance of not having 
 been washed for a century, the sanitary 
 arrangements were loathsome, and as for food, 
 there was practically none. Inmates were ex- 
 pected to provide and cook for themselves. 
 No pots, pans or utensils of any sort or kind 
 were supplied. My soldier friends who had 
 endured hardships under the Bolsheviks were 
 now able to enjoy the luxury of prison treat- 
 ment at the hands of a friendly government 
 and, like me, they hated it. A person in 
 this place without money would simply starve^ 
 not as in Russia because of shortage but 
 for the very simple reason that the White 
 Finns hate the Red Russians, and those in- 
 terned are all suspected of being Reds. 
 
 As for quarantine, there was none. The 
 last comers were mixed with the first — in fact, 
 the place was a disease factory. 
 
162 WHAT I SAW IN BUSSIA 
 
 The morning following my arrival, I wired 
 an angry protest to the British Minister at 
 Ilelsingfors, and sent similar messages to the 
 Finnish Foreign Minister and my Finnish 
 Socialist comrades. In addition, I tried to 
 wire to Lloyd George and the Daily Herald, 
 but these telegrams were not despatched. 
 
 To say I was alarmed is only to say the bare 
 truth. I was expecting to get the very diseases 
 from which the authorities were pretending 
 to protect me and others. In addition, every 
 time I moved, an armed soldier — a mere youth 
 — accompanied me. And as I know how 
 thoroughly hated I was by reactionary Finns 
 and White Russians, I expected every day to 
 be shot or otherwise put away by accident. 
 
 To people who travel in Scandinavia, 
 vapour or steam baths are taken as a matter 
 of course. I was ordered to take one in a 
 sort of stable house about ten minutes' walk 
 from the hut in which I was detained. For 
 some days my throat had been giving me 
 trouble, so I jibbed at a vapour bath with a 
 ten minutes' walk to follow. Two fully 
 armed soldiers, a nurse, and a matron appeared 
 and tried to coerce me, but obstinacy won, 
 and for a day or two I was left alone. 
 
 On the third day a delegation from Hel- 
 singfors appeared representing the British 
 Army, the British Consul and the Red Cross. 
 After a wrangle, I was removed to what is 
 
MOSCOW TO LONDON 163 
 
 called, for want of a better name, a hospital, 
 accompanied bj' my two soldier friends. Here 
 things were slightly better. At least our 
 food \\'as served on plates and we had mugs 
 out of which to drink. But dirt, cobwebs, 
 etc., were visible in this place also. The bath 
 was attached to the house, so in I went — to 
 find myself in an atmosphere something like a 
 steam laundry when the steam has escaped. 
 Once inside, I discovered that it was usual to 
 be accompanied by an aged woman whose 
 business it is to scrub the backs of the bathers 
 and assist generally in removing dirt. So 
 naturally did this woman offer her assistance 
 that I almost succumbed to her endeavours to 
 persuade me to allow her to carry out her 
 duties. But being born in England and con- 
 sequently unduly modest, it was impossible to 
 bring myself to allow her to do the job. When 
 I left the bath, I had to run the gauntlet of a 
 laughing good-natured group of women, to 
 whom the story of my conduct had no doubt 
 been told. 
 
 This incident shows how natural the rela- 
 tionships between men and women are in these 
 countries. I am certain if I told in England 
 that such things happen in Russia, many 
 people ignorant of the fact that it is a custom 
 in Finland and other Scandinavian countries 
 will at once cry out about the immorality and 
 vice of the Bolsheviks. 
 
164 WHAT I SAW m BUSSIA 
 
 After five days and six nights at the disease 
 factory we were set free. I parted with my 
 soldier friends, who travelled alone from 
 Terijoki to Copenhagen. I went on to 
 Helsingfors and was once more royally re- 
 ceived. I met the Socialists and Communist 
 members of the Diet, addressed a great 
 demonstration on behalf of peace with Russia, 
 spoke at a big brotherhood meeting under the 
 chairmanship of Pastor Sirenius, met many 
 official and unofficial friends, and at last 
 packed up for Stockholm, where I met Com- 
 rades Strom and Wallenius, and some paper 
 merchants with whom I was able to do busi- 
 ness. The Swedish comrades gave a supper 
 party in my honour, and, as at Helingsfors, I 
 gave interviews and wrote articles for the 
 Press. In Copenhagen I met Litvinoff and 
 found him still in difficulties with the British 
 authorities. I also met a group of Single Tax 
 friends, who met me at a supper given by Mr. 
 and Mrs. Bjornen. 
 
 The treatment of Litvinoff, the Russian Am- 
 bassador, by the British authorities will be re- 
 membered for all time as one of the most mean 
 and despicable incidents in a long campaign of 
 vilification and calumny. It would appear as 
 if the British Foreign Office, acting in league 
 with the jingoes of France, are determined to 
 sabotage every attempt which is made either 
 for trade or peace. One diplomat explained 
 
MOSCOW TO LONDON 165 
 
 matters to me thus : " The AUied Govern- 
 ments have no moral relationships with the 
 Russian Government. We are only negotia- 
 ting on a material basis." What exactly he 
 intended to convey is not for me to deter- 
 mine; it is obvious, though, if words mean 
 anjrthing, that Britain was willing to trade but 
 not willing to make peace. 
 
 Litvinoff and his colleagues long for peace, 
 but they desire a just peace as between equals. 
 If the Allies persist in thinking of Lenin, 
 Litvinoff and others as scoundrels and thieves, 
 then no peace is possible. Litvinoff may have 
 broken diplomatic conventions while in 
 London : that is the worst that can be charged 
 against him ; but so also have a score and more 
 of Allied representatives in Russia. It is time 
 a halt was called to these grotesque person- 
 alities and Europe started with a clean slate. 
 I saw enough of the workings of diplomacy 
 in Copenhagen to realise that if the British 
 workers understood the dirty game of make- 
 believe which men, quite honourable in 
 other walks of life, play as diplomats, they 
 would rise up and sweep the whole Foreign 
 Office away, with all its traditional hypocrisy 
 and humbug. 
 
 Will it be believed that in Copenhagen, 
 after James O' Grady's return, no one was left 
 who had any power either to speak or write to 
 Litvinoff on behalf of the British Govern- 
 
166 WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA 
 
 ment? The charge d'affaires could only com- 
 municate in an unofficial manner through un- 
 official channels. The consequence of all this 
 was gross misunderstanding and delay in 
 handling the negotiations for trade. 
 
 It will be of interest to many people to 
 know that Litvinoff, this much abused man, 
 is a homely, kindly man living with his wife 
 and two babies in Copenhagen. He gives 
 eighteen hours a day to the service of his 
 country, takes no leisure or pleasure, finding 
 his whole satisfaction in life by serving his 
 country to the very fullest extent of his 
 powers. 
 
 I arrived home on Friday, March 19th, hav- 
 ing been out of England exactly nine weeks. 
 My reception at Harwich by members of the 
 local Labour Party and in London at Liver- 
 pool Street was most cordial and enthusiastic. 
 I can never forget the fact that a great crowd 
 of those with whom I have lived and toiled, 
 lost time and money to welcome me back. 
 May we all go forward together as a united 
 body continuing to work for the coming day 
 when co-operation will be the law of life. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 OATH TAKEN BY THE RED ARMY ON ENLISTMENT 
 AND RE\E^VEn ON MAY DAY EACH YEAR 
 
 Before the \vorking classes of Russia and of 
 the whole world I swear to bear my calling 
 honourably ; to perform my training con- 
 scientiously ; and zealously to guard public 
 and military property from damage or loss. 
 
 I swear straightly and unflinchingly to observe 
 revolutionary discipline, and unhesitatingly 
 to obey all the orders of the commanders 
 appointed by the Workers' and Peasants" 
 Government. 
 
 I swear to abstain myself and withhold my 
 comrades from all actions lowering to the 
 dignity of a citizen of the Soviet Republic ; 
 to direct all my actions and thoughts to- 
 wards the great aim of the liberation of all 
 
 the workers. 
 
 169 
 
170 WHAT I SAW IN BUSSIA 
 
 I swear, at the first call of the Workers' and 
 Peasants' Government, to come to the de- 
 fence of the Soviet Republic against all 
 perils and attacks by any of its foes, and, 
 in battle for the Russian Soviet Republic, 
 for the work of Socialism and the brother- 
 hood of the peoples, to spare neither my 
 energies nor my life itself. 
 
 If by malicious intent I break this my solemn 
 promise, then may universal contempt be 
 my lot, and may I be punished by the stern 
 hand of the revolutionary law. 
 
 THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL 
 
 Since my return to England there has been 
 much discussion in Socialist and Labour circles 
 on the question of violence and the Third 
 International. I discussed both these points 
 with Lenin rather fully. He knows I am a 
 pacifist and said to me : " You are a Christian, 
 I am not ; I am an Atheist. You think 
 you can accomplish the revolution without 
 violence, I think you will not be able to do 
 so. If in England you are able to do this, 
 well and good. No one wants bloodshed 
 merely for bloodshed's sake, but it is neees- 
 
APPENDIX 171 
 
 sary that the workers must arm in order to 
 obtain the revolution. The workers must arm 
 to protect the revolution because I do not 
 believe the capitalist class will give in without 
 a fight." 
 
 On the question of Parliamentary action on 
 lines such as obtain in England, I argued that 
 we had all the machinery of government and 
 administration ; that we had our great trade 
 union and co-operative movement and friendly 
 societies ; that all these organisations, national, 
 municipal and voluntary are training men and 
 women for the work of administration, and 
 that it would be quite easy for us to take over 
 whenever the workers really desire to do so. 
 I gave as an instance of what I meant the 
 Poplar Borough Council, where we have an 
 almost solid representation made up of Labour 
 men and women — people who actually work 
 with their hands. I asked him whether we 
 ought to give up all this work, and most em- 
 phatically he replied "No"; that we should 
 all remain in every organisation, learn all we 
 can, and use them, of course, as means of 
 propaganda and experiment. 
 
 As to my pacifism and my hatred of 
 violence, he said he could understand it and 
 could appreciate it, and what he was anxious 
 to know was on which side should I be in the 
 event of a revolution. My reply was that al- 
 ways I should be on the side of the workers. 
 
172 WHAT I SAW IN BUSSIA 
 
 I did not gather that because I was a pacifist 
 I should be excluded from the Third Inter- 
 national — ^in fact, I understood both from 
 Lenin, Fineberg and Zinovieff that I should 
 be accepted as a member although I could not 
 accept the policy of armed revolution. 
 
 I think that I should emphasise the fact that 
 Lenin most definitely is of opinion, not that 
 the workers want to fight or that he and his 
 friends want to fight but that the capitalists 
 will make them fight ; and always he gave as 
 an instance the fact that in Britain Sir Edward 
 Carson was allowed to raise and equip an army 
 of over one hundred thousand men and was 
 supported by all the leading Tories. By so 
 doing he was able to defeat an Act of Parlia- 
 ment which had not only passed the legislature 
 but had received the signature of the King. 
 
 Printed in Great Britain by Ebenezer Baylis It Son, Wereester. 
 
THE 
 "NEW ERA" 
 
 SERIES 
 
 1920 
 
 
 
 
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 PORTUGAL STREET 
 
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 PARSONS, LTD. 
 
 KINGSWAY, LONDON 
 
 
 
 
THE NEW ERA SERIES 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE day is past when politics were regarded with 
 equanimity by the vast majority of the population as the 
 comparatively harmless pursuit of two rival sets of otherwise 
 unemployable gentlemen; a game of "ins" and ' outs "in 
 which the ordinary person joined boisterously during a 
 general election but which he at all other times neglected in 
 favour of the more urgent question of gaining his livelihood. 
 
 But the war, if it has done nothing else, has at least 
 quickened the political consciousness of a large number of 
 people. It is now more fully realised than ever before that 
 politics exert a direct and overwhelming influence upon the 
 industry and trade of the country, upon the working and 
 leisure hours of its inhabitants, upon the conditions under 
 which they and their children thrive or suffer, upon, in 
 short, the whole social life of the community, not only 
 in the present but in the future. And hence the cry — 
 persistent, swelling and confined to no party, class or creed 
 — for enlightenment, for an opportunity to learn, not at 
 second hand, but directly from the foremost exponents of the 
 new ideas — ^just what those ideas portend. 
 
 To answer this demand is the object of the "New Era" 
 Series. Its net will be wide-spread, designed to gather in 
 all those who, whatever the variety of their particular interest, 
 are conscious of the urge towards that true Progress which 
 is the most hopeful sign in the world to-day. It is even 
 possible, too, that opponents — those, that is to say, who 
 desire to keep civilization where it is, will carry the courage 
 of their convictions far enough to study what the leading 
 advocates of the other side have to say and not merely what 
 is put into their mouths by the experts of a hostile press. 
 
 As time passes and new theories and new problems arise, 
 fresh volumes dealing with them will be added to the series, 
 which, it is hoped, will thiis retain its right to its title. For 
 at any given moment and to any given person the "era " is 
 always ' new." 
 
 J. E. J. 
 
 London, May, igso. 
 
THE NEW ERA SERIES 
 
 Quarter Cloth. Crown 8vo 
 
 Price 4\6 net. Post free, 4J11 
 
 THE REAL RUSSIA, by George Lansbury. 
 
 Mr. Lansbury, whose sincerity and honesty no just-minded 
 person would question, went to Russia for the express 
 purpose of seeing for himself to what extent the first great 
 experiment in practical socialism has been justified by its 
 results. 
 
 This book is a record of his impressions. In his intro- 
 duction the author summarizes the general spirit prevalent 
 in Soviet Russia. He then goes on to deal in turn with the 
 system of workshop control, the Trade Unions and the atti- 
 tude of the workers to the so-called "industrial conscription" 
 he describes the conditions of Public Health, the favoured 
 treatment shown to the children and the absence of religious 
 persecution ; gives accounts of his interviews with Lenin and 
 Madame Lenin, Krassin, Kropotkin, Lunacharsky and others 
 and of his visit to the British prisoners ; and discusses such 
 questions as the system of justice, food control, education and 
 the position of the co-operative movement. 
 
 No one, of course, could have learnt everything about 
 the present state of Russia in the course of a few weeks ; but 
 no man living was better qualified to investigate and to set 
 forth the facts than the author of this book. Mr. Lansbury 
 may be trusted to have observed accurately and to have 
 written truthfully. 
 
NATIONALISATION OF THE MINES, by 
 Frank Hodges (Sec. of the Miners' Federation). 
 
 Second Impression, 
 
 An analysis of the industrial, commercial and economic 
 position of the coal-mining industry. 
 
 The methods, achievements, successes and failures oi 
 private enterprise are set forth, and the conclusion is reached 
 that the zenith of prosperity under the existing system was 
 reached in 1913 and that from then onwards the industry has 
 tended to become a burden instead of a benefit to the public. 
 
 The arguments for and against the Nationalisation of Coal 
 are analysed and a scheme for the financial transfer and 
 compensation is given in detail. The position of the tech- 
 nical, commercial and manual workers under National Owner- 
 ship is explained and stress is laid on that important but often 
 neglected factor, the psychology of the workers themselves. 
 
 The book, written by an expert, is on broad and logical 
 rather than on narrow and partisan lines. 
 
 THE NEW LIBERALISM, by The Right 
 
 Hon. C. F. G. Masterman. 
 
 In " The New Liberalism," Mr. Masterman examines the 
 application of Liberal principles to the problems which have 
 arisen in the world after the war, especially in connection 
 with reforms demanded by the changes in social conditions 
 at home. He shows how the two guiding principles 01 
 Liberalism in practical affairs, the warfare for liberty and the 
 warfare against poverty, are finding their expression in an 
 actual programme, necessarily in some respects, different 
 from, but developed out of the Liberal programme that was 
 being preached in pre-war days. He deals also with some 
 of the practical questions of political parties, including the 
 relations between the Liberal and Labour parties, and the 
 possible changes that can be foreseen in the immediate 
 future, in a world still disturbed by the great catastrophe. 
 
 THE POLICY OF THE LABOUR PARTY, 
 by /. Ramsay Macdonald. 
 
 This book explains to the general reader the origin, com- 
 position and objects of the Labour Party, which is shown to 
 be not merely the organization of a class to secure political 
 
power, but an inevitable result of the political evolution ot 
 the country. Further, its programme is proved to be not a 
 class programme but a national one in the fullest sense of 
 the term, and its claim to represent workers by brain as well 
 as those by hand, is justified. Its aspect as an intellectual 
 movement is also dealt with. 
 
 The book is an authoritative pronouncement on the policy 
 of the Labour Party in the future, written by one who was 
 responsible for the party in its early years, who won for it its 
 first successes, and who has been a member of its Executive 
 from the beginning. 
 
 NATIONAL FINANCE AND THE 
 LABOUR PARTY, by Philip Snowden. 
 
 Of all the serious problems which have been left by the 
 war, none is more grave and urgent than the economic and 
 financial position of Great Britain and other European 
 countries. The writer of this volume is an acknowledged 
 expert on Finance, and in this book he deals with national 
 expenditure, the public debt, direct and indirect taxation, the 
 national wealth, its distribution, and the possibilities and 
 methods of further taxation for the reduction of the debt and 
 the financing of social reconstruction. Proposals are dis- 
 cussed for the reduction of the burden of interest upon public 
 loans, the nationalisation of banking, and the imposition of a 
 levy on capital. 
 
 LAND NATIONALISATION, by A. Emil 
 Davies, L.C.C., and Dorothy Evans (formerly 
 Organizer, Land Nationalisation Society). 
 
 In the past the importance of the land problem has been neg- 
 lected, but now the changed conditions brought about by the 
 war call for increased production at home. This book shows that 
 the present system of land ownership impedes production on 
 every hand and stands in the way of almost every vital reform. 
 
 The authors contend that no solution of the serious pro- 
 blems that confront the community can be found until the 
 nation itself becomes the ground landlord of the country in 
 which it lives. They put forward a scheme for nationalisation 
 complete in financial and administrative details, providing 
 for the participation of various sections of the community in 
 the management of the land. 
 
PUBLIC OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL 
 OF THE LIQUOR TRADE, by Arthut 
 Greenwood (Vice-President of the Workers' Edu- 
 cational Association). 
 
 This book is a statement of the case for the public owner- 
 ship and control of the liquor traffic. It deals first with the 
 development of the drink industry and the efforts which have 
 been made to regulate it, and then with the measures adopted 
 during the war period, including the Carlisle experiment in 
 public ownership. Upon the history of the past and the 
 experience of the present, the author builds up the economic 
 and moral arguments in favour of State purchase and public 
 control. The question of the price to be paid is fully dis- 
 cussed, and a scheme of public ownership is outlined. The 
 book contains a large amount of information regarding the 
 present position of the drink trade, and presents a weighty 
 case for the comprehensive handling of the liquor traffic in 
 the national interest. 
 
 THE NEW LABOUR OUTLOOK, by 
 Robert Williams (Sec. of the Transport Workers' 
 Federation). 
 
 The theme of this book is the new orientation of the aims 
 of international Labour. The author deals with the acute 
 world-need for increased output, and maintains that the 
 workers will consent to produce more only if and when they 
 have assured themselves that by so doing they will imme- 
 diately improve their economic status and ultimately establish 
 a new social order. 
 
 A separate chapter dealing with the collapse of the Second 
 and the development of the Third or Moscow International 
 indicates the connection between the present political crises 
 in many countries and the economic class-struggle which is 
 now proceeding. 
 
 The author has a wide and varied experience oi proletarian 
 conditions, and has drawn largely upon facts within his own 
 personal knowledge for the material of the book. 
 
DIRECT ACTION, by William Mellor (In- 
 dustrial Editor to The Daily Herald). 
 
 In this book the author gives the philosophic reasons 
 which justify the use of " Direct Action." He argues that 
 the order of society prevalent in every country where the 
 capitalist method of production obtains, is one that excludes 
 the great mass of the inhabitants from any effective share in 
 the control of their own lives. The salient fact of civilization 
 to-day is the Class Struggle. 
 
 The book is a challenge to the ordinarily accepted views on 
 Democracy, and forms a general indictment, not only of the 
 present system of production, but of the methods adopted by 
 constitutional Labour Movements to inaugurate "The New 
 Era." The author faces and considers dispassionately all the 
 applications of the theory of the Class Struggle — the strike, 
 whether general or partial, the boycott, sympathetic action, 
 sabotage, and, above all, the urgent question of the relation 
 of industrial to political action. 
 
 A NEW ARISTOCRACY OF COMRADE- 
 SHIP, by William Paine (author of " Shop 
 Slavery and Emancipation"). 
 
 Mr. Paine is an idealist and this book is the exposition of 
 a great ideal — that of comradeship — which he believes is 
 spreading from man to man and from nation to nation. He 
 recognises as its conscious agents those who are enrolled 
 under the banners of Socialism and kindred faiths, but here 
 he is more concerned with the unconscious agent "who is 
 called to an adventure which he does not understand." 
 
 The book explains what that adventure is ; and then, for the 
 interpretation of the new spirit, pleads for the creation of a 
 provisional body of teachers who " should not be the outcome 
 of any one class, since no class as it exists to-day is good 
 enough to assume the leadership ; it should be composed oi 
 the real aristocrats of every class whose chief concern should 
 be with the rising generation." 
 
GUILD SOCIALISM (RE-STATED), by 
 G. D. H. Cole, M.A. 
 
 Guild Socialism has been the subject of a number ot 
 books during the last few years, and already the earlier 
 of these books are to some extent out of date. The Guild 
 idea has been expanding and developing rapidly during the 
 last few years under the impetus of the Russian Revo- 
 lution and of the new industrial and social situation every- 
 where created by the war. In this book Mr. Cole attempts 
 to re-state the fundamental principles and the practical policy 
 of Guild Socialists in the light of these developments. He 
 deals with the social and economic theories on which Guild 
 Socialism is based, with the structure and working of 
 a Guild Society and with the next steps towards Guild 
 Socialism, both in industry and in Society as a whole. The 
 book does not claim to be definitive ; but it will certainly 
 provoke discussion. 
 
 AFTER THE PEACE, by H. N. Brailsford. 
 
 The author attempts to survey the condition of Europe 
 as the war, the blockade, and the Peace Treaties have left 
 it. He discusses the various ways in which a sick con- 
 tinent may attempt to find an escape from the doom that 
 threatens it — by social revolution, by militarist reaction, 
 by the voluntary revision of the Treaties. He emphasises 
 the clash of interest between country and town, which is the 
 chief barrier against revolution, and studies the new con- 
 ditions, especially the coal shortage, which make it unlikely 
 that Europe can ever again feed its former population in 
 conditions compatible with a civilized standard of life. The 
 sabotage by the Allies of the League of Nations is discussed, 
 and a policy considered by which a Labour Government, 
 if it can control foreign policy, might repair the ruin 
 accomplished at Versailles. 
 
 LEONARD ^^M PARSONS, LTD. 
 
 PORTUGAL STREET H^^^H KINGSWAY, LONDON