The Workshop Of The Revolution. I. N. Steinberg 1953
The Butyrki prison in Moscow served the Bolsheviks as it had served the czarist regime. It was large enough to house thousands of inmates and in February, 1919, it was filled to the brim. The prisoners in the Butyrki represented a colorful cross-section of all classes, parties and nationalities in Russia. In addition to criminals (in the usual sense of the word), they included the aristocrats, ministers and governors of the old regime, and members of all Russian socialist and anarchist groups which were then fighting against bolshevism. Among them were no less than two hundred Left Social-Revolutionaries. I was one of them. Now in 1919 it was almost a year since the Left Social- Revolutionaries had resigned from the Soviet Government, and since that time they had led a semi-legal existence in opposition to the Bolsheviks. I remember the night of February 10, when I was brought to the Butyrki. How shall one relate the grim emotions of a revolutionist thrown into a prison of the revolution? I was experiencing feelings of disbelief, of being in the midst of a fantastic nightmare, mingled with my consciousness of reality. Almost instinctively the weary mind recalled the famous parallel of the French Revolution . . . then, too, experienced strange sudden turns of fortune: it was but a step from the height of power to the gates of prison.
Earlier that night Maria Spiridonova and I, as representatives of the Left Social-Revolutionaries, had addressed a mass meeting in a large steel plant just outside Moscow. In those days the workers still held on to the last remnants of freedom, and members of a party which was in sharp opposition to the Government could still talk to them. But a sense of disquiet and foreboding hovered, like a fog, over the dimly lit factory hall. Restlessness in the speakers; restlessness in the audience. We all knew that Government police were everywhere on guard, among us and outside. Faces were serious, tense, disturbed.
Spiridonova, speaking softly but resolutely like a sister or a mother, talked of the bitter rigors of the life around us. She dealt equally with the material impoverishment of worker and peasant families, and with the political pressure and the terror that was spreading among them. She particularly criticized the ever-growing power of the Red Army, which had been turned into a tool to ensure Bolshevik mastery over the people. The men and women in the hall looked at her with eyes full of sorrow and devotion. At this moment the official Bolshevik speaker, Yurenieff, interrupted. A tall man, dressed in the uniform of a Red Army officer, he turned on Spiridonova, even though he maintained some outward respect.
“How can you, Maria Spiridonova,” he thundered, “so malign the Army, our glorious Army which has won so many victories?”
She replied with indignation. “Have you lost all shame? . . . The old Army talked just like you, in the same bloated patriotic terms. One can hardly recognize you any longer.” [13]
There was no doubt as to where the sympathy of the silent mass of listeners lay. But outside the plant the people’s master stood in readiness. Spiridonova and dozens of her friends were arrested that February night. And as I hurried home, two heavily armed young men appeared out of the darkness and “requested” that I accompany them to the Cheka.
In the bleak, inhospitable building of the Cheka on Lubianka Street, I found a large number of Left Social-Revolutionaries who had been arrested and were gathered here from all parts of the city. I noticed a very young Latvian fellow in Chekist uniform sitting withdrawn in a corner and reading Bebel’s pamphlet, “The Society of the Future.” When he saw me looking at him, he said, “Yes, surely, you are better off now than we . . . you can still fight for the purity of your ideal. . . .” He envied us that night. And from the viewpoint of world history he was right.
In the middle of the night some of us were taken to the Butyrki prison. The disturbing events of the day and the inner turmoil- imprisonment for us was not so much a physical, as a political shock-had left us limp with exhaustion. A tough phase of the struggle was now behind us. In the office, where we were relieved of all “unnecessary” belongings, I suddenly noticed that the warden (surely not a very sensitive personality) never once raised his eyes to me. What was the matter? It transpired that he was really shaken by the great change in my personal position. Not so long ago, in March, 1918, all prisons in the country had been under my jurisdiction as Commissar of Justice. My word and signature had been an order for him. Now I was a prisoner in his hands, even though a prisoner of high rank. He asked respectfully where I would like to be, in a common or a solitary cell?
I smiled and replied without hesitation, “Give me a quiet cell.” I got it.
I was surprised at the change in myself since my early youth. Once before, in 1907, as a nineteen-year-old student, I had been arrested in Moscow. Then I had wanted to be together with my comrades in a large common cell. I was drawn by the vivacity and cheerfulness of the young socialists, by a desire to talk and study with them. Or perhaps I had been afraid of remaining alone with my thoughts. But now I wanted to be by myself; I needed time and quiet to take stock of what had happened, to review the stormy months of the revolution and to think of what was still in store.
There was a great deal to occupy one’s thoughts. All one had to do was to observe the agitation that took hold of the entire prison on the morning after our arrest. Why? Because this time the Bolshevik Government had put its heavy hand on a group whose revolutionary and socialist standing was beyond all question. And there was particular joy among the aristocrats held in the Butyrki. Czarist officials and military men-like A. Djunkovsky (tutor of the czarist heir-apparent) or Prince Shikhmatoff (former Governor of Samara)-exclaimed jubilantly:
“This is the end of the revolution. . . . They've begun to devour each other.”
And we too, on that first morning after our arrest, faced the question: What does it mean? Not merely in relation to our personal safety and comfort, but in terms of the political purpose of such mass persecution. Was this the final breakup of the once common front? And if so, was it right to give defenders of the old Russian regime cause for malicious satisfaction? How will our friends, and our enemies, abroad react? All this we had to ponder frankly and searchingly within the four walls of our cells. It was chafing to be put behind bars. More than two hundred Left Social Revolutionaries had been brought here from many provinces of Russia, and many more were held in other Moscow prisons like the Taganka and the military prison of Lefortovo. They were mostly young men and women-workers taken from the factories and peasants from the fields-who were bursting with the new-born vigor of a revolutionary people. The battles, the destruction and rebuilding, in the two years since the beginning of the revolution had left indelible marks on them. To be confined in prison, suddenly to be whisked away from the battlefields and the seething life outside was perhaps more painful for them than for others. This, after all, had been “their” revolution. In contrast to other moderate socialists who were also imprisoned, these young people did not regard the march of events since October, 1917, as a mistake, crime or historic accident. What had happened to make them now prisoners of their own revolution?
All of us, professional intelligentsia and workers alike, decided to adapt ourselves to the routine of a crowded prison and to make efforts to live a full intellectual life. With passionate interest we followed events “outside” (civil war raged in the country); we analyzed and discussed political affairs. I took to study the many volumes of the Socialist History of the French Revolution by Jean Jaures. Another comrade, Boris Kamkov, read books on the French Commune of 1871. We sought parallels between those revolutions and the contemporary Russian panorama. We drew comparisons, or established differences, between personalities and events then and now. Sometimes we gained hope and encouragement, and sometimes we had misgivings about our future.
Some of our comrades, Vladimir Trutovsky and Onissim Chizhikof in particular, concentrated on studying the sorely pressed economy of the Russian revolution and drafted new social-economic plans for future use. One thought guided them throughout: the economy of the people must not come to dominate their culture and their freedom. It must, instead, be their- servant and help create the best conditions for a libertarian social order. The plans they formulated were realistic, because only a “wall” separated them from life.
But “routine” is rarely the rule in a political prison. Dramatic incidents were always occurring in the Butyrki. One night, for instance, a brigade of the Cheka tore into the large common cell of the Left Social-Revolutionaries and forcibly tried to remove five of the inmates. The commandant said they were being transferred to the Lefortovo military prison. Why in the middle of the night? their comrades insisted. Suspecting that these five were being taken away to be shot, the comrades immediately threw up a barricade to defend the threatened men. In that “ideal” period the administration still paid heed to protests. They asked the leading Left Social-Revolutionaries to come from their cells so that they might discuss the issue with the others. We did, and held a general meeting without the presence of the Chekists. We then demanded, and received, assurances that no executions were in the offing, only transfer from one prison to another. And we parted “pacified.”
Yet there was good reason to fear executions in the middle of the night. Men under sentence of death were frequently held in the Butyrki. Here they waited for their last hour, for the arrival of the “Black Raven.” The “Black Raven” was the Cheka truck, its windows barred, its brutal guards armed to the teeth.
Whenever a man was taken from his cell and told to gather up his “things,” that is, all his belongings, he knew the moment had come to bid farewell to life and his comrades. Most of the men executed in those days were “criminals,” convicted of robbery and assault. Many of them were young fellows who had actually been sentenced to prison terms. By order of the administration they were to be used in servicing jobs in the prison. In the spring evenings they would climb on the window sills, wistfully watch the free world go by and sing their melancholy Russian folk songs. And the entire prison, sharing their sadness, would listen to their tunes. On one mild spring night several of these young men were suddenly taken from their cells to the black truck. They were stunned because they had been given life sentences. With fear and forced bravado mingling in their voices, they shouted up to our windows, “Goodbye, comrades!”
All of us, without exception, felt as if we ourselves were being taken to our death, as if we were guilty of the destruction of their frivolous lives. The socialists in particular felt shamed and humiliated. For socialism, more than most other humanitarian movements, had always sought to understand and explain the criminal’s individual tragedy as the product of an unjust society. The Bolshevik regime, by its cold statist attitude toward the criminal, conclusively proved its incompatibility with the basic tenets of socialist justice. And it was no accident that the only men who approved these strong-arm methods of the Government were the aristocrats and former czarist officials.
And there were other executions too-startling, summary executions of political opponents. Alexander Vilenkin had been a Liberal and an excellent lawyer who had acted as attorney for the British Embassy in Russia. Incarcerated in the Butyrki he lost neither his courage, his wit, nor his zest for living. But the Cheka mistrusted him because of his anti-Bolshevik opinions and was looking for a pretense to liquidate him. His death was cloaked in mystery. It was rumored that the prison administration had one day received instructions from the Cheka to set him free. But the authorities of a political prison never rush to carry out an order for release. Suspecting the authenticity, they enquired directly at the Cheka and, so went the story, were informed that the order was a forgery. That was enough to sign Vilenkin’s death warrant. We were told later that he was taken to a field behind the city in the dead of the night. As the Cheka squad readied for its job, Vilenkin lit a cigarette and-gallant to the end-offered one to the soldier standing beside him. The man accepted the cigarette with shaking hands.
“Why are you trembling?” Vilenkin asked.
“It is the first time I've been on such a job,” the other replied wretchedly.
“It is the first time for me too,” Vilenkin said gently one minute before his death.
Small wonder that many revolutionists kept the thought of a prison break always in mind. It was no simple matter to escape a “heap of stones” like the Butyrki, but it was even tougher when the prison was administered by men who knew well the ways of political prisoners.
Dzershinsky, Peters, Latzis and their collaborators in the Cheka all knew from personal experience how vigorous men in prisons thought and planned. And hence they guarded the socialist prisoners with special care. But there are always some whom no force can keep behind bars.
On March 22, 1920, six prisoners, guarded by two militia members, were detailed to bring milk for the Butyrki prison. Five were Left Social-Revolutionaries and one a Right Social-Revolutionary. On the way they disarmed their guards and fled. Three Left Social-Revolutionaries and the Right Social-Revolutionary succeeded. One, Mayorov, was captured and brutally beaten. The fifth-Stepanov-was shot during the pursuit. . . .
It was early morning. In the busy streets of Moscow-a city which considered itself the center of a world revolution-six socialist workers fought for their lives. Liberty seemed so near at hand, the six prisoners thought feverishly; all they needed was to wrest it from hostile hands. Thousands of men and women with gaunt faces and frightened eyes streamed by in all directions while, within their view, the dramatic flight to freedom was being enacted. But not one of the thousands on the streets helped them. Instead, obeying the militia men, they guided them so that their bullets mortally wounded Stepanov. Mayorov, who was straining every nerve to outstrip his pursuers, stopped in his tracks and bent over him. Stepanov whispered, “Farewell, comrades,” and died. The guards caught up with Mayorov.
And who was Stepanov? He was one of those talented, genuine men of the people. He had started out as a worker and sailor. Then he became editor of a newspaper, did propaganda work in the cities of Rybinsk, Simbirsk, Kazan. His clear mind fully grasped the desperate situation in the country. A man of unquestioned moral integrity, he was loved by all his fellow prisoners, whatever their party. Stepanov was truly one of those anonymous folk heroes of the revolution.
And writing of Stepanov, many others so much like him come to mind. There were the two brothers Zertsalov, for instance, and a very young fellow by name of Nekrassov-all three hailed from the city of Kaluga. In the hospital, from which Nekrassov was transferred to the prison, they had called him the “twenty- five-year old gramp.” His face was framed by a thick black beard and his entire body bespoke utter weariness, but his youthful voice and its almost childlike intonation gave his true age away.
I remember having been told while I was still in prison that he was dying of tuberculosis, that it was almost not worth demanding that he be released. (But unexpectedly the Cheka was to set him free so that he might be treated in a sanatorium.) “How were you so stricken?” his comrades had asked. He had always been anemic, he told them. Then one day he had been’ arrested on the street in Moscow and taken to the Cheka. His cell had been so tiny that there was not room enough to take even a few steps. Two months he and two other comrades had spent lying about on the bunks, breathing foul air and tormented by all kinds of vermin. Then twenty more Left Social-Revolutionaries had been arrested; the entire cell had declared a hunger strike, demanding transfer to a “proper” prison like the Butyrki, and after three days of strike they had gained their objective. But for some reason Nekrassov was overlooked; he hungered a fourth day and was unconscious when finally taken to the Butyrki. In the large common cell the comrades surrounded him with tender care, but he heard them whisper that he was dying. Yet he survived. “In addition to TB,” I subsequently wrote in my diary, “he also has a kidney ailment, rheumatism and something else. And still his voice is soft and clear, and his eyes shine with kindliness.”
And I asked myself: What gave these men the strength and the perseverance to endure so much? Nekrassov, the Zertsalovs and all the others in the Butyrki were dying a slow death, sacrificing their lives drop by drop for their ideals. How staunch must their faith have been in contrast to other thousands who betrayed their convictions with varying excuses and jumped on the bandwagon of the triumphant Bolsheviks. The whole atmosphere of the “proletarian” state was luring these betrayers of their convictions as with a siren song; it placed attractive temptations in their path. It gave the “little man” a chance to become important, strong, powerful. It was sweet poison for weak men.
In those days the Russian who wanted to travel the highway of an easy conquest and an easy life had to commit but one small . . . obscenity, one small outrage: do violence to another human or, even more important, to himself. A man had to commit but this one act of moral self-debasement to step across the threshold to power and influence in the Bolshevik order. How simple, how easy such an act should have come to these proletarians who had stood on the lowest rung of the social ladder, and in whose name everything was being done. For were they not now the nobility of the new regime?
And yet there were hundreds and thousands of workers and peasants in that hungry, cold, enslaved Russia who did not rush to add their names to the register of the Bolshevik peerage. On the contrary, they were prepared to suffer, to endanger their families and their lives to defend their ideas of socialism and revolution. Scrupulous integrity made them fight against the lie of “their” state. They established the proud order of men who stood by their truth. Surely these children of the people, rather than the leaders of the state, were the real miracle of the revolution. Surely they were the best proof that a true revolution can unearth tremendous reserves of spiritual and moral strength among the people.
It is not difficult to imagine the effect which Stepanov’s death had had on all prisoners in the Butyrki. Almost unwittingly hands had clenched into fists and the men had taken up the sharpest weapon in the arsenal of the disarmed: the hunger strike. There had been and were yet to be many such strikes in the Butyrki.
I have in my possession a full account of the progress and upshot of one such strike. More than a hundred men and women took part in it and it lasted fully six days and nights. On November 27, 1919 the prisoners had handed the following ultimatum to the Cheka:
“The Left Social-Revolutionary prisoners in the Butyrki have several times addressed the Cheka and the Workers’ Soviet of Moscow with the request to improve conditions in the prison. So far, the government agencies have not even troubled to reply. The Left Social-Revolutionaries therefore call upon them for the last time to improve conditions. The typhus epidemic, which has felled many of us, the general emaciation due to inadequate food (much of which is consistently stolen by the prison authorities); months of occupying damp unheated cells-all these add up to a situation which can well be termed ‘slow death.’ It forces us to use every means at our disposal in support of our demands. The Left Social- Revolutionaries set a deadline three days hence to meet their demands.”
The thirteen listed claims included: better food (prisoners were fed soups made of wormy fish); heating of cells; exercise in the yard twice a day; a bath once a week, including soap and a change of underwear; warm clothes and boots; permission to conduct classes for the prisoners. These were minimal human requests and they proved how miserable were the conditions in the prison of a “socialist” Government. What did the Cheka have to say? Nothing.
By the end of November, 1919, when the ultimatum was delivered to the Cheka, I had already been released from prison, and I subsequently lived in what might be called “semi-legality” in Moscow. One reason for my release had been the Bolsheviks’ intention to try to trap, through me, those of our party who were working in the underground. But they were not successful; and for a long time I managed to maintain close working contact both with our comrades in the underground and in prison.
The prisoners began their hunger strike on November 30. Secretly their committee managed to smuggle out to me daily, detailed reports. These tiny slips, covered with almost microscopic writing on thin paper, I have kept to this day.
“Today, at six o'clock in the morning, the hunger strike was started in full unanimity,” the first bulletin announced. “A hundred comrades, men and women, are taking part. The strike committee induced ten of our sickest comrades to desist. Rumor has it that a teletype came from the Cheka at three o'clock this afternoon with the offer to accede to some of our demands. We will not agree, and we expect you to draw the attention of the people to our struggle.”
But the government-for behind the Cheka stood the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party-had no intention of giving in. The bulletin of December 2 reported a deteriorating situation.
“Last night the five members of our strike committee were called to the prison office supposedly to negotiate the end of the strike. Instead, they were detained and taken to the Cheka. Today the warden appeared in the Twelfth Corridor and attempted to call a general meeting, but no one moved from his cot. He gave us to understand that, since our committee ‘ has been kidnaped, it would be easier to break the strike. The prisoners, however, passed a resolution to continue the strike and refuse all negotiations until the committee is returned to our midst. The resolution closed with these words: ‘The time will come when the Russian and European working masses will learn of this unexpected outrage on the part of the ruling Bolshevik party.’ In the meantime, another ten comrades have joined the strike. The total now stands at 110.”
The “war bulletins” were issued also on December 4 and 5. Nicolai Shabalin, a Kronstadt sailor and one of the most devoted Populist-socialists, now signed the letters. On December 4, he wrote:
“Dear comrades. We send you our greetings. Despite the fifth day of the strike our spirits are high, and we continue with faith in ourselves. Yesterday-as a symbol of protest- the Right Social-Revolutionaries too declared a hunger strike. Even our very sick comrades, whom both the physicians and we had forbidden to hunger, have joined. The warden broke into the cell of our women, threatened them with his gun and cursed them like a brute. The members of our committee have not been returned yet; the whole prison is under isolation; the solidarity and steadfastness of the comrades is admirable. Do what you can. I embrace you. . . .
Shabalin.”
The letter of December 5 read:
“Dear comrades. Greetings from us all. Today is the sixth day of the strike. Our spirit is resolute, even though physical strength is ebbing in some. All are ready to fight to complete victory. We won’t fall for any provocations on the part of the administration. Our delegates are held in the North tower under increased guards. The Right Social-Revolutionaries will end their strike as soon as the committee returns. But we shall continue until the full implementation of our demands. Be well. We kiss you all.
Shabalin.”
And here is the triumphant letter of December 6, signed once again by the members of the original committee.
“Yesterday, December 5, at twelve o'clock at night, the strike ended. The courage of the comrades surpassed all expectations. Under conditions of violence and provocation, eighty per cent of them sick, scattered and isolated in different parts of the prison, they nevertheless passed the test. The government refused to give in not because of our economic demands, but because it hoped to break us with the pangs of hunger. But it ran up against a steel wall. The strike ended, as it began, simultaneously in all parts of the prison as soon as our committee, which was brought back, gave the word. The events have aroused enthusiasm among all prisoners in the Butyrki.”
The end of the strike brought relief even for the administration of the prison. At midnight the building came to life bathed in electric light. The Red Cross brought in food for the starving people. When they began rising from their cots, deathly pale, emaciated, hardly able to stand on their feet, they were surrounded with limitless warmth, care, love. Even those who were too weak to get up watched with shining eyes the joyous tumult around them. They, too, tasted the joy of victory. For a regime of the strong had had to submit to the power of the weak. Even the hardened Chekists seemed to be impressed by this spectacleof courage and sacrifice. This was the end of one episode of trial and heroism. Though many of the prisoners remained ailing for the rest of their lives, they felt encouraged and uplifted. But for how long?
In short order, after the escape of Stepanov and his fellow prisoners, the Cheka decided to punish all Left Social-Revolutionaries, Right Social-Revolutionaries and Anarchists in the Butyrki even though they had had nothing to do with the escape. They were deprived, for a period, of all formerly acquired privileges. And that is how things went back and forth-as in a game of cat and mouse. There were other, even more bitter, hunger strikes. But the Cheka never yielded again, never negotiated with the strikers; only beat them and forcibly scattered them in various cities. (Dzershinsky, leader of the Cheka, had shouted even about the hunger strike of December, 1919: “What? They want to dictate to us? They want to tell us how to run a prison?”) But compared with the sufferings in Bolshevik prisons in subsequent years, the hunger strike of December, 1919, was like an “idyll in black and gray.”
The regime held yet another whip over the prison-the whip of hostages. People were declared responsible with their lives for the actions of other men with whom they had no connections whatsoever. The prisoner whom the Government press has announced to be a hostage bears no responsibility for whatever unrest exists in the country. Yet the regime pronounces him “guilty,” uses his life and his fright to terrorize others. The Bolsheviks adopted this barbaric measure from the practices of war, when Army commanders thus sought to safeguard their position in the midst of a hostile population. But the Bolsheviks turned a transient measure into a permanent political instrument to hold in constant fear both the hostages and the population at large.
One evening (while I was yet in prison), when our solitary cells had already been locked for the night, I settled down to read the evening paper, Evening Moscow. We, the “VIP” prisoners of those days, were still permitted to read newspapers. My eyes caught the headline of a Government pronouncement; “Spiridonova, Steinberg and other leaders of the Left Social- Revolutionaries and Mensheviks declared hostages.”
It seemed unbelievable. Death suddenly loomed as a real, and yet fantastic, danger. Was it that simple for a Government and its Cheka to snuff out my life? Could I, the ego to which I was bound and which was still so full of life’s passions, suddenly disappear? And yet, how dared the Government of the Bolsheviks raise its hand against us, socialists, who only recently had been colleagues in one government? If there were a peasant uprising in the province of Tambov, for instance, or if workers struck in a Briansk factory-would they really dare to take our lives for that? How would they explain this to the Russian people as well as to the world abroad?
Such were the thoughts that flashed through my mind. But it was not so much the “politics” of the event that was uppermost in my consciousness; far sharper was the pain in my heart when I thought of my family outside. My wife had surely read the threatening words; she might not perhaps realize at once the political details of the proclamation. And a family is thus deprived of the last measure of peace; for from now on they would worry helplessly not only about my freedom, but about my life. ... It was not easy to think these thoughts alone at night in a locked cell, without a soul to talk to.
But youth is healthy, and shortly after I lay down on my cot, remembering the old Russian proverb that the morning is wiser than the night before, I was soon sound asleep. And the world did look different in the morning. The treacherous shadows of the night had vanished and even through the barred window the bright blue of the sky penetrated my cell. My political awareness suddenly noted a detail I had overlooked the night before: not just we, but also the Mensheviks, had been declared hostages! How could “they,” the Bolsheviks, threaten equally Social-Revolutionaries and their own Marxist relatives, the Mensheviks? I was convinced that “they” would be unable to justify to the Russian proletariat the execution of Menshevik Social-Democrats with whom they were organically united by their entire party-political life. For Plekhanov and Martov had been their common teachers, before their separation into hostile camps. And all of them, Plekhanov and Lenin, Martov, Dan and Kamenev, had, after all, drawn sustenance from the same intellectual source-Marx. And besides, the Mensheviks had never fought the Bolshevik regime as openly and as resolutely as had the Left Social-Revolutionaries. No, there was no real danger as long as they coupled the two parties together.
When I met my comrades later in the corridors, I discovered that almost everyone had come to the conclusion that we need not take the statement too seriously. Very soon I was provided with proof of this. “Our” investigating judge, the Chekist Romanovsky, arrived at the prison. (He was the expert on the prosecution of Left Social-Revolutionaries.) This small-built man with sly eyes and his artificial gentlemanly manners entered my cell with a mien of disturbance.
“Listen, Comrade Steinberg"-he never called us anything but comrades-"what are your friends doing?”
“What are they doing?” I asked.
“Oh, don’t pretend you don’t know. Your friends outside have issued a proclamation.”
“How am I supposed to know about it in here?” I countered. “But what’s the proclamation?”
“Your Central Committee has declared that if the life of a single Left Social-Revolutionary in prison is touched, three Government leaders, starting from the top, will answer for each Left Social-Revolutionary. . . . This statement was sent today both to the Cheka and to the Central Committee of the Communist Party.”
I turned to Romanovsky with a grin. “Why are you so nervous? The statement says clearly that they will start at the top. You're not there yet, are you?”
He turned on his heel and left the cell. My heart overflowed with relief and pride. Obviously the forces of the revolution had not yet been spent. A sheet of paper, covered with a few lines of print set in an underground printing shop, had impressed the powerful dictatorship. In Romanovsky’s frightened face I saw a reflection of “their” fright. And, of course, all our concern over having been declared hostages vanished into thin air. But all this was happening within the four walls of the prison. Our families knew nothing about it. How many sleepless nights and long days, filled with mortal fear, were spent at that time and since by thousands of families of such innocent hostages. For those “outside” it was perhaps more painful and more heartbreaking than for those threatened.
A few days later Dzershinsky came to the Butyrki and visited the famous leader of the Right Social-Revolutionaries, Abram Gotz, in his cell. Dzershinsky felt some sort of “collegial” solidarity for this former Katorga inmate of czarist days. He told the Right Social-Revolutionaries that in the Government “they” had never taken the statement about the hostages too seriously. It had been done for political purposes ... to intimidate those peasants and workers who were opposing the “Soviets.” The Government had had no intentions of putting its threat into effect. Perhaps. . . .
But who abroad would have understood this attitude of a socialist Government toward old socialists? During that period I had the opportunity of observing the shattering effect of Soviet realities on one foreigner.
Fritz Platten was a well-known Swiss socialist. When Lenin lived in Switzerland, Platten had been one of his enthusiastic young followers, and he later accepted the Russian Revolution as his own. During the Third Soviet Congress in Petrograd in January, 1918, he made a speech bringing greetings from foreign friends. The Soviet Government was then completely isolated from the world outside, and his words therefore greatly encouraged the thousands of delegates to the Congress. He spoke in German and I translated his speech, phrase by phrase, into Russian. The ovation to this slender, inspired man was tremendous.
Now, in 1919, he came to Moscow, his sacred Mecca. When he learned that Left Social-Revolutionaries, and I among them, were in prison, he was terribly confused. He could not understand how people who had taken an active part in the October Revolution could now be considered counter-revolutionaries. He asked Lenin for permission to visit me in prison for a frank talk. Lenin agreed.
I was called to the prison office in the middle of the week. It was not visitors’ day, and I was therefore intensely curious as I walked through the long corridors with a guard on each side. And I was amazed, when I walked into a large empty room,, to find Fritz Platten there. He ran to me, his face contorted with pain and concern, and I had to calm him down. The guards left us alone-apparently on orders from the all-powerful- and we sat down to talk. There is no need to relate the full contents of this trying conversation. The foreign socialist found it difficult to comprehend the drama that had thus affected not only my personal life but the revolution as a whole; he could not believe that a new throne, the Kremlin repainted Red, had emerged from the mass movement of the revolution, and that it looked with jaundiced eyes on every free expression of the people.
We talked in low tones. Platten overwhelmed me with questions expressing astonishment and hurt; he tried to soften the tone of my description, promised me a “change for the better.” I was miserable to have to pour ice-cold water on the head of this sincere believer, but he had to know the truth so that he might report it abroad. But despite everything I told him, he assured me that he would discuss all this with Lenin and try to rectify this terrible “misunderstanding.” We parted as friends.
And much later I learned that he got nowhere with Lenin. Lenin listened with interest to his report of our conversation and then said, “You see, that’s how they arc. . . .” “But,” Platten retorted, “how can you hold them in prison? They are definitely not counter-revolutionaries?” “Of course not,” Lenin said. “But that’s exactly why they are dangerous; just because they arc honest revolutionists. What can one do?” [14]
The doors of the prison rarely opened to freedom for the revolutionists, and when they did, it was a great event. Such freedom occurred for Irina Kakhovskaya, one of the most striking personalities of the Social-Revolutionary Party. Convicted for terrorist activities, she had spent her youth at hard labor in Siberia, and was liberated only by the Revolution of February 1917- She had hardly had a chance during the stormy twin years of 1917-1918 to do the socialist educational work which was her real love when she felt called once more to terrorist activities: this time in the Ukraine.
Heading a new underground “combat unit,” she organized on July 30, 1918, an attempt on the German Field Marshal General von Eichhorn in Kiev, who ruled the country with ruthless oppression. Boris Donskoy, who threw the bomb, paid with his. life for the attempt. Kakhovskaya, who was tortured for a long time by the German prison interrogators, was spared the same fate only by the outbreak of the German revolution at the end of 1918 and the liberation of Kiev from German occupation.
She returned to Moscow in 1919 and found her party and the revolution as a whole in dire straits. For this fine, peace-loving woman saw that socialism was endangered by the regime no less than by the White armies of the czarist generals moving up from South Russia. Resolving the moral conflict for herself, she decided to defend the people on the front that was clearest and simplest for her-against the White generals Kolchak, Denikin, Wrangel. She formed another “combat unit” of devoted Left Social-Revolutionaries to do the job on the spot.
But in May, 1919, the Cheka arrested all members of the unit while in a conspiratorial flat. Despite the fact that it was quickly discovered for what purpose they had organized, they were taken to the Butyrki, these self-sacrificers, these “dead on parole.” Six weeks later the Cheka decided that it had no evidence against them as “enemies of the Soviet power.” Furthermore, it was interested in their projected revolutionary activities in enemy territory. They were released because they were expected soon to leave Moscow. But they were not really free: the Cheka representative Romanovsky had the incredible nerve to demand Kakhovskaya’s pledge that “if she remained alive, she would give herself up to the Cheka as soon as returned to Soviet territory.” Despite the road of martyrdom which she and her friends were taking again, despite the deadly danger they would confront behind enemy lines, bolshevism had no respect for the revolutionists. The regime would consider her, should she remain alive, not a heroine, but an enemy whose life and liberty were forfeit. Smiling enigmatically, Kakhovskaya signed the pledge.
Her terrorist plan did not succeed. At the end of the year, with a severe case of typhus, she arrived back in Moscow under an assumed name. Friends brought her, in an unconscious state, to the private hospital of a courageous physician. For many weeks she lay in a state of delirium; but eventually she recovered. The Cheka discovered her identity, but it did not insist on her “pledge” then. Some time later, however, Kakhovskaya was arrested again and exiled to Central Asia. She has not been heard from since 1931.