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The Force is Strong With This One
Letters From Russia 1919
P.D. Ouspensky
Introduction
From 1907 until 1913 Ouspensky wrote fairly regularly for a Russian newspaper, mostly on foreign affairs. At the same time he was working on various books based on the idea that our consciousness is an incomplete state not far removed from sleep, and also that our three-dimensional view of the universe is inadequate and incomplete.
Hoping that answers to some of the questions he had posed might have been found by more ancient civilisations, he made an extensive tour of Egypt, Ceylon and India.
On his return Ouspensky learnt that Russia was at war. For a time impending events did not prevent him from lecturing about his travels to very large audiences in St. Petersburg and Moscow. But in 1917 while revolution was spreading through all the Russias, and the Bolsheviks were establishing their reign of terror, Ouspensky was living in various temporary quarters in South Russia, in conditions of great danger and hardship.
Until he managed to reach Turkey in 1920 he and those around him were completely cut off from the outside world, unable to receive or send news even as far as the next town, constantly on the alert to avoid being picked up and murdered by the Bolsheviks.
In 1919 Ouspensky somehow found a way to send a series of articles to the New Age, which, under the skilful editorship of A. R. Orage, was the leading literary, artistic and cultural weekly paper published in England. These five articles appeared in six instalments as 'Letters from Russia'. They give a detached but horrific description of the total breakdown of public order, and are reprinted here for the first time.
A remarkable feature of the 'Letters' is that while the revolution was in progress and the Bolshevik regime not fully established, Ouspensky foresaw with unusual clarity the inevitability of the tyranny described by Solzhenitsyn fifty years later.
During the winter of 1919 and the spring of 1920 C. E. Bechhofer (afterwards known as Bechhofer-Roberts) was observing events in Russia as a British correspondent who spoke Russian and had previous experience of the country and people. He had met Ouspensky before 1914, both in Russia and in India; he was a regular contributor to the New Age and had himself translated the first of Ouspensky's 'Letters from Russia', written in July 1919. In Bechhofer's book In Denikin's Russia the author describes the week or two he spent with Ouspensky and Zaharov above a sort of barn at Rostov-on-the-Don. With its pathos and humour this passage makes a fitting epilogue to Ouspensky's smuggled 'Letters'.
Fairfax Hall
Letter I
Ekaterinodar, July 25, 1919
It is now two years since I last saw the New Age, and I do not know what is being said and thought and written in England and what you know. I can only guess. During this period we here have lived through so many marvels that I honestly pity everybody who has not been here, everybody who is living in the old way, everybody who is ignorant of what we now know. You do not even know the significance of the words 'living in the old way'. You have not the necessary perspective; you cannot get away from yourselves and look at yourselves from another point of view. But we did so long ago. To understand what 'living in the old way' means, you would need to be here, in Russia, and to hear people saying, and yourself, too, from time to time, 'Shall we ever live again in the old way? . . .' For you this phrase is written in a quite unintelligible language -do not try to understand it! You will surely begin to think that it is something to do with the re-establishment of the old regime or the oppression of the working classes, and so on. But in actual fact it means something very simple. It means, for example: When shall we be able to buy shoe-leather again, or shaving-soap, or a box of matches ?
But, no, it is no use. I feel sure you will not understand me.
You are used to considering questions on a much wider basis; the question of the box of matches will seem to you excessively trivial and uninteresting. I see perfectly clearly that we have lost utterly and for ever the ability to understand one another.
A lady of my acquaintance, whose husband has been abroad all this time, while she has been here with her little son, said to me recently: 'I am frightened of the moment when my husband and I will meet again. He won't understand. Perhaps he will ask me why Alex hasn't been learning English; and I -I shall not know what to say. Indeed, we shall both of us be silent the whole time. Every trifle will create a gulf between us. In the old days we understood one another very well. But now we shall be distant from each other, strangers. . . .'
I understood. We know too much to be able to speak to you on equal terms. We know the true relation of history and words to facts. We know what such words as 'civilisation' and 'culture' mean; we know what 'revolution' means, and 'a Socialist State' and 'winter', and 'bread', and 'stove', and 'soap', and many, many more of the same kind. You have no sort of idea of them.
We know that 'war', and 'polities', and 'economic life' -in a word, all those things about which one reads in the papers, and in which those big two-dimensional creatures called Nations and States live and move and have their being -we know that all this is one thing, but that the life of individual men and women is quite another thing, having no points of contact with the former, except when it does not allow the latter to live. We know now that the whole life of individual men and women is a struggle against these big creatures. We are able to understand without difficulty that a Nation is a creature standing on a far lower stage of development than individual men and women; it is about on the level of the zoophytes, slowly moving in one direction or the other and consuming one another. Thank Heavens we are now beginning to perceive that we are not so.
I am not preparing to set out an esoteric philosophy for your attention. Not in the least. Life, as we see it here, shows us that it is not at all what we used to think it, and that, in any case, we must not regard it as a single whole. A fight is going on within it of blind, struggling forces; and through this fight we are somehow able to steer a course.
If we begin, in what is left of Russia to-day, to examine this life of the great forces, we observe primarily that everything in it acts according to one general rule, which I may call the Law of Opposite Aims and Results. In other words, everything leads to results that are contrary to what people intend to bring about and towards which they strive.
The people who started the war with Germany and pointed out the necessity of destroying Germany and militarism, and so on, did not in the least intend to overthrow the monarchy in Russia and create the Revolution. And the men who dreamed of the Revolution and liberty, and so on, did not in the least expect to bring in the epoch of Kerensky's speeches ('Enough of words; the time is come to act!'). And Kerensky did not intend to create the conditions in which Bolshevism could develop and ripen so well. And the Bolsheviks did not propose to live in a state of perpetual war and to introduce into Russia what is in actual fact the dictatorship of the criminal clement. In precisely the same way the people who are now struggling to bring about the re-creation of a great, united, indivisible and so on Russia are gathering results very little resembling what they are striving for. And, on the other hand, their opponents -not the Bolsheviks, but those others who favour the idea of a federation of separate and independent States, instead of a single Russia -are destroying every chance of such a division, and are strengthening the idea of unity.
This side of our own life is very curious and characteristic from the point of view of this same Law. The idea of self-governing units is in itself very alluring. The evils ofcentralisation have long been demonstrated. But none of the people who used to examine in theory the status of small self-governing units can ever have thought that the first coming to life of such organisations would begin with their all fighting with one another. But this is what happens. Before anything else is even thought of, the frontiers are closed, customshouses are established, passage through their territories is made difficult, as is likewise the taking in or out of articles, and then the local politicians start making speeches about the wicked schemes and general depravity of the neighbouring State, about the necessity of getting rid of its evil influence upon local conditions, etc., etc. And at once the dull rattling of weapons begins in one direction or the other.
The Russia of to-day presents an interesting picture. To travel from Mineralny Vody to Rostov and thence to Novorossisk, you pass through four States, each with different laws, different prices, different sorts of police, united only by a single common quality, namely, that without bribes (and such enormous bribes as were never even dreamed of in the old Russia) you cannot go far. For example, for a railway ticket that costs 1oo roubles, you have to pay a bribe of 200 or 300, or even 500 roubles. Of course, this is not the case always or everywhere; but, wherever there are any prohibitions, bribes are essential. If you want something more important than a railway ticket, you have to pay correspondingly more. Everyone knows about it. Everyone talks about it. And everyone accepts it as permissible and inevitable. We have understood that it is a point of contact between historical events and the life of individual men and women.
If you want to see what Russia now is really like, try to imagine the following happening in England, then you will see how much more interesting and varied our life is than yours.
The scene is Rostov station about a month ago. The night train for Ekaterinodar is about to leave. There are no tickets to be had. This means that you must pay a porter 140 or more roubles for a third-class ticket costing 40 roubles. For this you get a ticket for a numbered seat. But when the passengers get into the train it appears that for every seat four tickets have been sold. Then even we begin to be irritated. An official appears, something like an old-time gendarme, and invites anyone who wishes, to remain behind and make a complaint. When he is given the number of the porters who sold the tickets, and is told to fetch the stationmaster and the booking-clerk, he merely smiles at the naivete of the questions and says that these gentlemen are busy.
And now if we turn to the life of individuals and see how it develops 'points of contact' with history, we observe that the pre-eminent subject of conversation is the strangeness of our all being alive (not all, of course, but we who survive), and the reflection that we may all perhaps be alive for a little while longer. The next favourite topic is the high price of everything, generally how much such and such a thing costs.
The prices of all products and necessities have risen by twenty, fifty, a hundred, or six hundred times. Workmen's wages have risen twenty, fifty, or even a hundred times. But the salary of an ordinary 'brainworker' -a teacher, journalist or doctor -has risen in the best cases by no more than three times, and very often has not risen at all, but has actually decreased. If you earn 2,000 roubles a month, you are considered to be doing well; but often one meets with earnings of 1 ,000, 800 or 600 roubles. But the cheapest pair of boots cost 900 roubles, a pound of tea 150 roubles, a bottle of wine 60 roubles, and so on. On the whole, you may reckon a rouble now as worth a pre-war kopeck, i.e., its hundredth part.
You will ask how it is possible to live under such conditions. And this is the most occult aspect of the whole question.
I will answer for myself: I personally am still alive only because my boots and trousers and other articles of clothing -all 'old campaigners' -are still holding together. When they end their existence, I shall evidently end mine.
In general, to realise these prices, you must imagine that everything in England has grown correspondingly dear, viz., boots, £90; a suit, £400; a pound of sugar, £10; and that your income remains precisely what it was before. Then you will understand our Russian life to-day.
You must understand, too, the psychological side of these prices. In some people they create panic, in others complete prostration, in others again a kind of mystic fatalism. In primitive people they evoke a thirst for profits, because never in any place were profits made so simply and easily as now in Russia. The prices are different in every place. To carry something from one town to another is to make money. Prices rise by leaps and bounds. At Ekaterinodar, which is considered the cheapest place in Russia to-day, the price of bread doubled itself in a fortnight, rising from 11/2 roubles a pound to 3 and even 31/2. Everybody realises that.this is the result ofsome big 'deal'. Someone is putting millions into his pocket. But since it is not exactly clear who, in this particular case, is doing it, everybody prefers to be silent. But 'the masses' rush to take part in the general looting, the fascination of which excites their imagination. For a bag of flour or of bread, a basket of eggs, or a jar of butter may bring them a whole fortune as reckoned in the old values. So the trains and stations are crowded with people with bags and baskets; they carry typhus and cholera, and regulate commercial relations between the States of the Don, Terek and Kuban.
This 'speculation' is one of the most prominent symptoms of our life. It began in the first year of the war, and has grown to such an extent that we cannot exist without it. When a 'war upon speculation' is declared, we all begin to groan and cry out. For it means that some article of necessity -milk, butter or eggs -will temporarily disappear altogether from the market, and when afterwards it comes back it will cost three or four times what it cost before.
In nothing has the Law of Opposite Aims and Results appeared more clearly than in the war on profiteering. Nothing seems to touch an ordinary inhabitant who does not take part in speculation so seriously as the war with it.
You will ask what else we live for. Russia was once famous for its literature and its art. Yes, but that all disappeared long ago. Literature, art and science have all been abolished by the Bolsheviks, and they remain abolished.
Ah, but I forgot! The Bolsheviks, I said. I quite forgot that you do not know what this word means. Even if you have seen Bolsheviks in England, believe me they are not the real thing. In my next letter I hope to tell you what Bolsheviks are.
Letter II
Ekaterinodar, September 18, 1919
recently succeeded in obtaining several copies of English newspapers for the months of July and August. They were the first to come into my hands after more than two years spent in a country completely cut off from the rest of Europe. And I read the old copies of The Times, the Newcastle paper, the North Mail, as they can only be read by a man who has just been released from gaol or who has returned from a journey to the North Pole. Very soon, however, the first feeling of happiness gave way to another, of fear.
Your people do not see or know anything, just as two years ago we did not see or know anything ourselves. And I wished I could shout to you: 'Look at us, look at our present state! Then you will understand the meaning of what is happening to you, of what is awaiting you if you fail to see in time where you are being led.' All I read in your Press I mentally divided into three groups. The first consists of the usual newsitems: latest news, daily events, murders, suicides, the flight of the R.37, the Ulster question, the Prohibition campaign, etc., etc. Behind this news, however, one feels the desire to make everybody believe that nothing exceptional is happening or has happened, and that life continues as before in the customary and wellknown way, a little too pronounced to be quite natural.
Unhappily in reality this life is already at an end, not in our country alone. Something new, yet unknown, is abroad in your country as well. If you only knew our history for the last two years you would realise what is happening to you and have a look at the future.
The second group of news makes me sure of the fact of the approaching future. I can feel in the letters, articles, etc., a pronounced feeling of fear. The chief topic at present is the high cost of living. You begin to feel the neighbourhood of the precipice! There is, for instance, a letter by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to The Times about the causes of high prices and the means to combat them, or else I find under discussion the Profiteering Bill, and generally everything that is being written and said about prices of coal, dresses, fruits, butter -in fact of everything. Something is happening, and nobody can understand what it reallyis. All that is being said on the Profiteering Bill is very characteristic. Everybody understands it to be a measure of self-deception, but nobody can think of anything better. And suddenly I fancied daybreak in London, the town yet asleep, and the old Mr Sherlock Holmes leaving his flat in Baker Street accompanied by his faithful friend, Dr Watson. In his long coat with turned-up collar he is going out to look for the causes of the high cost of living. Yesterday again all prices went up, on cabbages and lettuces, and there are no reasons for it. Poor old Sherlock Holmes, you will never succeed in untying the knot in which England is now entangling herself. There is only one way of doing it. Tell Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to send Sherlock Holmes to Russia! I will show him everything; he will understand everything and he will see everything. The seeds that are only just springing up in England have already revealed their flowers and fruits in Russia. And about the qualities of these fruits and flowers there is no doubt possible. I include in this group what is being written about Russia by her friends, i.e., those who consider it necessary to help Russia, and to help her in her struggle with the unknown. There is also here great uncertainty. To help, yes! Of course help is necessary, but a help not too substantial or strong, but such that there may not be any serious results!
And finally, the third group of what can be found in your newspapers. Here, on the contrary, there are no doubts or uncertainty. This news tells ofthe indignation of the workmen with the policy of the Government in the case of bourgeois-capitalistic Russia. They ask for the immediate recall of the tanks and the armies out of Russia. They threaten a strike if help is continued to the reactionary forces fighting the young Russian democracy. Even better sounds the advice given to liberated Russia to make peace with the Bolsheviks, to draw a frontier and to live peacefully without disquieting Europe. I would like you to understand how we feel when reading this third group of news. Imagine that robbers have broken into your house. They have got hold of almost the whole house, killed half your family, and are starving the rest to death and shooting down people from time to time. At the moment when you have begun to fight the robbers and succeeded in liberating some of the people, you are advised to make peace with the intruders, to give them halfofyour house, leave the rest of your family in their power and live peacefully yourself without troubling your neighbours. Or imagine the siege of Delhi. The armies coming to liberate the town are advised to make peace with the besieging armies and leave them to do what they like with the town. If you clearly realise this picture you will understand the true meaning of the advice and the source whence it comes.
There in 'besieged Delhi' are our friends and relatives. Many of those who are now in the South have left their fathers, mothers, wives and children there. We do not know who is still alive and who is already dead. In any case, there are not many of them left. All news that reaches us from there tells us of somebody's death. It is a long time since we have had any other news. Hunger, cholera, typhus, cold, violence, murder and suicides -this is the life of the North. For over half a year the armies of Yudenitch have been near Petrograd. As early as last winter the papers wrote that as soon as the ice broke it would be possible to buy food, Petrograd would be taken. Everybody who had relatives there waited for the spring to come, counting the days and hoping that those who survived the awful winter would be saved. But the Neva was freed from ice, the summer has passed; it is now autumn, and winter is nearing, but Petrograd is still in the hands of the Bolsheviks; and of those who were alive in the spring only a few are left now. The reason for all this is perhaps that the friends of Bolshevism -friends avowed and secret -have succeeded in assembling such a cloud of lies around it that commonsense and reason, all possibility of understanding, have been completely submerged by it. I am sincerely convinced that, could England realise the true meaning of Bolshevism, neither the weariness with the war nor the dislike of being mixed up in foreign matters, nor the urgent necessity for reforms at home, would have prevented the British people from helping Russia. I am quite sure that a regular crusade would have started in England against Bolshevism could the British nation only realise the meaning of events in Russia, their causes and the goal they are leading us to.
But I would like it to be clearly understood that I do not want to start such a campaign, nor do I ask for help for Russia. First of all, I do not believe that the voice of a single man can have any effect on historical events. Secondly, I am not a politician, but merely an observer. Thirdly, it is already too late! In history events are prepared long before they are made public.
The months that have elapsed since the Peace Conference have probably outlined the course of events for many years to come. Now we can only wait and see what will be the result. At present, while I am writing this, a fire is breaking out and spreading over Italy.
The reason for this, as well as for many other things that will happen in Europe, lies in the fact that when peace was made no decision was taken about extinguishing the fire in Russia.
Now as to England's relationship with Russia, we must acknowledge that England's help to Russia has been very substantial indeed. Without it the Volunteer Army would not have been able to do anything against the Bolsheviks and would have been crushed. To speak quite plainly, I can now sit here and write solely because England helped us. But the struggle with Bolshevism is far from being at an end, and the results are still unknown. The present position can be summed up as follows:— In European Russia the Volunteer Army is scoring successes. It is possible that soon it will be able to save Moscow. But the Bolsheviks are pressing hard on Koltchak and making their way to Siberia. It is quite possible that, evicted from Europe, they will move into Asia. In this case, if they succeed in reaching the Chinese frontier, the position may be transformed and become very disquieting and dangerous for us, and not for us alone. We have to bear in mind that the armies consisting of Chinese have proved to be the hardest fighters and the most reliable force of the Bolsheviks. We know, too, from trustworthy sources, that these Chinese were recruited for the Bolsheviks in China by German agents. Recently the newspapers have brought the news that these agents are continuing their work of recruiting for the Red Army in China and that the Bolsheviks are expecting large reinforcements of mercenaries, ready to fight anybody and go anywhere. If we try to realise the number of such recruits that China is able to furnish the Bolsheviks with, we shall begin to understand that not only our future, but the future of the whole of Europe, may depend on the course events may take during the next few months.
The future of Koltchak may be fateful for Europe.
Japan can then save the situation by quickly moving her armies into Siberia and Russia. But I doubt whether she will do it. The government of Koltchak is probably delaying and will continue to delay negotiations with Japan. It is not able to offer a bribe serious enough for the eventual help. Meanwhile every moment is of importance, and no price is too high for assistance on condition that it be given quickly, decisively, and to the end. But apart from the procrastination and the superfluous amour propre of the Russians themselves, this assistance can be hampered by the competition of America, who also has designs on Siberian concessions. Or still more can the collision of interests between Japan and America in China, which is now assuming the prospect of an actual conflict, have a disastrous effect on their policy.
Behind these unexpected effects of a mise en scene I think I can perceive the hand of an experienced German schemer. Be that as it may, the chronologist of our times may note that in the autumn of 1919 the fate of Europe was in the hands of Japan. What Japan will do we shall learn next year. Certainly this is not the only possible way out. We can still hope that Koltchak will succeed in stopping the Bolshevik advance and later in throwing them out of Siberia; or else that Denikin, after capturing European Russia, will succeed in crushing the Red Army before the latter in its retreat to Asia can avail itself of Chinese support. We are hoping for this; it is our duty to hope for it; nothing else is left for us. But the worst is that even in the event of the success of Koltchak and Denikin against the Bolsheviks it allows the latter a long period for doing irreparable harm to Europe and Asia.
Such is the position at present. Unhappily, you do not realise what will happen if the Bolsheviks should gain a victory over Russia, or even if Bolshevism is allowed to remain for some time as a State, governing immense territories in Eastern Europe and Western Asia. The reason why you do not see the harm done to civilisation by the rule of Bolshevism is undoubtedly the fact that you do not realise its true meaning. You mistake it for what it wishes to be mistaken for. But the essence of Bolshevism lies precisely in what it is not mistaken for. You think Bolshevism a political system that can be discussed, but whose existence cannot be denied. In reality, Bolshevism is not a political system at all. It is something very old, that at different times has borne different names. The Russian language of the eighteenth century knew a name, preserved until now -'pougachevchina' -which renders very well the essence of Bolshevism. Pougachev was a Ural Cossack who pretended to be the deceased Emperor Peter III, and who raised an insurrection against Catherine II, and for a time succeeded in seizing half of Russia. He plundered the estates of landowners, hanged their owners and priests, gave the land to the peasantry, etc. A classical description of the 'pougachevchina' is to be found in a novel by our poet Pushkin, A Captain's Daughter. But Bolshevism of the twentieth century has one peculiarity -it is 'made in Germany', and Germany knows how to make use of it. Employing Bolshevism in 1917 to break up the Russian Army, Germany destroyed the danger menacing her Eastern front. You were in great peril, and you know it. But now you have decided that the peril is gone, and you are mistaken. Germany is not annihilated or even weakened. She is energetically and cleverly preparing a revanche. Her chief enemy is England, and the chief trump in her pack is Russian Bolshevism.
Letter III
Ekaterinodar, September 25, 1919
In the meantime the state of Russia, even in parts long liberated from the Bolsheviks, remains difficult, and, strange to say, is becoming worse compared with what it was immediately after the Bolsheviks were expelled. Prices rise above all possible count. In the average they are one hundred times, and in many cases two, three, or even many more hundred times, higher than before. I quote several instances to give you a better idea of the position, and give the prices in pounds at the pre-war rate. Ordinary writing paper costs £3.10s. for twenty-seven sheets; a newspaper of small format is sold at 6s. There are no books to be bought. Old schoolbooks are worth almost their weight in gold. A steel pen is bought for 2s. or 3s., tea for £16 to £20, coffee for £6 a pound. Bread in Ekaterinodar, which is supposed to be the cheapest place in Russia to-day, costs 5s. or 6s. a pound. In other places, e.g., Novorossisk, or in the Terek district, it is sold at 10s. to 12s. a pound.
How people manage to live at such a cost is a riddle to me. The pay of the workmen or the small officeholders has increased, if not as much as prices, at least in a certain proportion to them; but the pay of brainworkers has often decreased compared with what it was before the Revolution, and in several instances has disappeared altogether owing to unemployment. And, God knows why, it is considered that a 'brainworker' has no right to protest or to claim any improvement of his position.
I spent the winter in a small town of the Terek district. There the teachers of public schools (gymnasia) did not receive their salaries, i.e., they got neither the full amount nor did they get it when it was due. For some sort of reason, however, this is considered to be quite natural, and nobody takes any notice of it.
The Government does something for the military and its own immediate workers. But people not engaged in either military or other Government work are left to themselves, deprived of all assistance and of their elementary rights. It sounds like a joke, but it is reality; if you are not on military service you cannot get a railway ticket unless you are prepared to pay an enormous bribe. Many towns are closed to you, nor are you allowed to rent a room or a flat.
'The right to live', i.e., a written certificate authorising you to reside in any particular place -a measure which used to be applied to Jews -is now a rule for everybody. I do not know whom we have to thank for such a brilliant solution of the problem of personal rights, but facts remain facts.
Broadly speaking, the Russia that existed before is gone, and gone long ago. There is a bewildered and hungry country, where people are thrown out ofrailway carriages; where every conception of cultural values is gone; where any intellectual life ceased long ago; where, at the same time, the number of people under the command of somebody or other is continually increasing. And the sole aim of these persons who command is to improve their own position at the expense, of those who are deprived of all rights.
Bolshevism is a poisonous plant; it poisons, even if extirpated or trampled on, the very soil in which it grew, and everybody who gets in touch with it. Perhaps those who fight it are poisoned more strongly by it than anybody else.
If you were to talk with a simple Russian peasant about the essence of Bolshevism, this is probably the plain and open-hearted description you would hear:
'Everything for oneself or those nearest you, and nothing for the others.' Unhappily, this is the most poisonous seed in Bolshevism.
We have come back again to Bolshevism as the cause of everything that happens now in Russia.
Bolshevism begins with loud and fierce declamations. To pave its way it chooses the whole arsenal of extreme socialistic and political doctrines. It promises the people all that they ever dreamt of, all they could dream of. Never for a moment does it think of what can or cannot be fulfilled.
These boundless promises form the outstanding feature of what I call the 'first phase' of Bolshevism.
Hungry, weary, injured, scarcely rational people begin to believe. They always believe when something is promised to them.
The Russian Bolsheviks promised peace. It was their trump card; their struggle against the tragico-comic government of Kerensky in 1917.
The personal staff of the advocates of Bolshevism is also a peculiar thing. It consists in its greater part of neurasthenics. A little note I read in one of the English newspapers told me a lot. The Bolshevik literature was brought over to England by Mrs Pankhurst. There are names that always mean a lot.
The first phase of Bolshevism is composed of words; first of all promises, then calls to vengeance, lies, defamations, and again promises and promises.
People with little culture, and thrown out of the usual course of their lives, are easily and deeply affected by such fireworks of words. They believe and follow those madmen, or scoundrels, who lead them towards the precipice.
The change that occurred in the meaning of the word 'Bolshevik' is also very peculiar. The word itself sounds very awkward and foreign in Russian. It is not a very exact and grammatical translation of the word 'Maximalist'. But the Russian people attached to it a meaning of their own. I personally overheard a conversation two years ago between two soldiers. One of them, who, judging by his appearance, was of very 'advanced ideas' (they used to be called then comrade deserters), gave a lesson to another, a naive village boy. 'We are the greater number, do you understand,' he was saying, 'and, therefore, we are called Bolsheviks.'
For him, apparently, the word 'Bolshevik' corresponded to the word 'majority', and this is the sense that is still very widespread among the public.
I overheard this conversation on one of the journeys I had to undertake in the summer of 1917. Several times I had to cross Russia from Petrograd to Transcaucasia and back again. On the first of these journeys I met with another 'phase of Bolshevism', turning already from words to deeds, and using for its purpose different people and different arguments.
It took us five days to travel from Petrograd to Tiflis, where we arrived in the middle of the night. The railway station was crowded with soldiers -it was the Caucasian Army leaving the front and dispersing
under the influence of Bolshevik propaganda. We were told that it was unsafe to walk through the town at night, and we had to wait until the morning. I had hardly slept at all during the journey, and now I was slumbering, sitting in the buffet in an armchair. Suddenly terrifying cries and shouts were heard on the platform, quickly followed by several shots. The company was, of course, panic-stricken; all jumped from their seats, fearing what was to come. Very soon, however, soldiers rushed into the buffet, shouting 'Comrades, do not worry; we have only shot a thief' It appeared that they had seized somebody who had stolen three roubles out of somebody's pocket, and had therefore shot him on the spot. Over the body of the murdered man a meeting began to gather discussing whether it had been the right thing to do or not. The meeting was so excited that it very nearly came to blows and shots. The clamour was terrifying; several of the passengers went to look at the body of the deceased man lying on the platform.
An hour later there were more shots and cries another thief was seized and shot. Towards daybreak a third thief was shot, but it appeared that he was not a thief at all, but a militiaman -i.e., a policeman. All this happened on the platform, separated from us merely by a glass door. The general trouble was so great that nobody could understand anything. There on the platform lay three bloodstained bodies.
Of course, this was only the beginning. The soldiers were still friendly towards the public. The time had not yet come; everybody was still getting bread and shoes. But it was quite clear that as soon as there should be no bread and shoes, those with guns would get bread and shoes from those without guns.
While this process of 'deepening' the Revolution was taking place, the leaders of Bolshevism were making their way to power. At last, thanks to murder, lies, unrealisable promises, and using all criminal elements available in Russia, they succeeded in reaching their object. But now they found themselves in a really tragical position. I would like it to be clearly understood how tragic their position was. The Bolsheviks had no constructive programme, and in fact they could not have one. Everybody realised that none of their promises could be fulfilled. They had only to sit quietly and not stir. Any move they made rendered matters worse. It was enough to 'nationalise' a product for it to disappear from the market. 'Socialised' works and factories were busy at meetings and did no work. Life itself taught the Bolsheviks that they had only to continue the revolutionary policy of Kerensky -i.e., to print paper money and make speeches. If they did not like it, it was left to them to fly to Switzerland to arrange conspiracies and start terrorism against Bolshevism in Russia. I think that they themselves realised at that time that they were unable to do anything; the possibility of achieving any creative work was denied to them -their work was destruction alone. They were saved for some time by the struggle that started against them.
But the destruction was at that time an accomplished fact. Russian life no longer existed. All that has happened since is nearer to death than to life. In fact, Russian life was brought to a standstill from the first moment of the Revolution. This moment meant the destruction of any possibility of cultural work. Unhappily, only a few understood its real meaning.
The following is a personal opinion: the public, the man in the street, had a deeper insight into the Revolution and understood the events much better than the representatives of the Press, the literary men, and especially the politicians. These had lost all power of reasoning and were carried away by the whirlwind of events. Unhappily, their opinion was estimated to be Russian opinion, and, what is worse, they themselves mistook their views for the will of the nation.
It was at that time considered obligatory to profess joy in regard to the Revolution. All who did not feel it had to remain silent. Many, of course, understood that there was nothing to rejoice about, but they were scattered, and even had they spoken their voices would not have been heard in the general chorus of delight.
I well remember one evening of the summer of 1917, in Petrograd. I had been on a late visit at General A.'s, whose wife was a well-known artist, and I was returning home at night with M., the editor of a large artistic monthly. We had to stroll through the whole town. The whole evening through we never mentioned politics. Our host was right in the middle of political life, but he realised plainly enough the hopelessness of all efforts, and politics were in this house felt to be a skeleton at the feast. Only when out in the street did the topic of our conversation become politics.
'Do you know,' said M., 'there are idiots, even among cultured people, who feel happy in the Revolution, who believe it to be a liberation of something. They do not realise that, if it means liberation, it is liberation from the possibility of eating, drinking, working, walking, using tramways, reading books, buying newspapers, and so on.'
'Just so,' I said. 'People don't understand that if anything exists, it does so thanks to inertia. The initial push from the past is still working, but it cannot be renewed! There lies the horror. Sooner or later its energy will be exhausted and all will stop, one thing after another. Tramways, railways, post-all these are working, thanks to inertia alone. But inertia cannot last for ever. You will realise that the fact of our walking here and that nobody is assaulting us is abnormal. It is made possible by inertia alone. The man who very soon will be robbing and murdering on this very spot has not yet realised the fact that he can do it now without fear of punishment. In a few months it won't be possible to walk here at night-time, and some months later it will be unsafe to do it during the day.'
'Undoubtedly,' added M., 'but nobody sees it. All are expecting something good to happen, although nothing was ever so bad before, and there are so few reasons to expect anything good to happen.'
I have never seen M. since that evening, and do not know what has happened to him. Nor do I know if General A. and his wife are still alive, but I have often, in the course of these two years, remembered this conversation. Everything unhappily, has proved the truth of our conclusions so closely.
The next 'phase of Bolshevism' proved to be a touching community with another trait of Russian war life, and very soon this trait became the outstanding feature of Bolshevism. The original cause of the destruction of Russia, what led to the Revolution, was robbery -i.e., what you as a polite and cultured people call profiteering.
Marauding began with the first month of the war and penetrated continuously farther and deeper, sucking out the very spirit of life. No measures were taken against it in Russia, and it grew quickly and immensely and ate up all Russia. Bolshevism, as I have pointed out, assimilated itself to robbery. The masses wanted to have their share in the general plundering of Russia. Bolshevism sanctioned this plundering and gave it the name of Socialism.
I remember a comic occurrence in Petrograd in the same summer of 1917. A strike was called of the employees in manufacturing and haberdashery shops. A crowd of the employees, men and girls, walked in procession along the Nevsky from one shop to another, requiring them to be closed. I was on the Nevsky with a friend of mine. He became interested in the matter and inquired from a young man, obviously very proud of his new role of a 'striker', about the causes and aims of the strike. The lad began hurriedly and excitedly on an explanation.
'They,' he said, 'have profiteered since the beginning of the war. We know very well how much was paid for different articles and at what prices these were sold. You cannot conceive what profits they made.'
'Well,' asked my friend as a joke, 'you undoubtedly require now the reduction of prices and the return of unfairly made profits?'
'No-o,' answered the young man, obviously confused; 'our claims are made according to the programme.'
'What programme?'
'I don't know. In fact, the Party advised us that all salaries are to be raised by 100 per cent (or 60 per cent-I do not remember), and "they" won't give us it. "They" agree to do it from January; they want to save the profits made for the two years past. But we won't leave them alone.'
The question was quite simple. Young men and girls had for three years running witnessed a daylight plundering, and now demanded their share in the robbery. They were led by a party -which party it was I do not even know, but surely it was not the Bolshevist Party. This was busy with other questions. At that time, however, all parties were working for Bolshevism.
Letter IV
Ekaterinodar
My friend proved to be a true prophet. Very soon 'sharing in the plunder for the whole time it had been going on' became the leading principle of Bolshevism. Meanwhile -i.e., autumn, 1917-the actual traits of Bolshevism began to reveal themselves. They form the very essence of the movement, and their application consisted in a struggle against culture, against the 'intelligentsia', against freedom of any kind. People now began to realise the true meaning of Bolshevism; they began to lose the illusions which led them to confuse Bolshevism with a socialistic and revolutionary movement. These illusions, which we have lost, seem now to prevail among yourselves. Persons inclined to abstract modes of thinking persist in seeing in Bolshevism not what it actually is, but what it ought to be according to their theoretical deductions. These people will have a very sad awakening, and this awakening is not 'beyond the mountains', as the Russian proverb says.
The causes of the success of Bolshevism in Russia, which came as a surprise to the Bolsheviks themselves, can be found in the complete destruction of the economical bases of Russian life brought about by the war, in the incredibly mixed political views prevailing among the Russian intelligentsia, varying between patriotic chauvinism and anarchical pacifism, and chiefly in the instability of Russian political thought and the purely theoretical and demagogic character of the chief Russian political parties and tendencies. There was no party created by reality and resulting from actual existing conditions. All that was opposed to Bolshevism consisted of theories alone, theories and phrases very often the same as those employed by the Bolsheviks themselves.
The Bolsheviks knew what they were aiming at; nobody else knew. This is the reason for their success. Of course, their success is only temporary, as, generally speaking, nobody can be a Bolshevik for ever. It is a sickness from which people either recover or, if its germs have entered too deeply into the organism, they die.
Lately the comparison of Bolshevism with disease has become common. This is not sufficiently true.
Bolshevism is not only a disease; it is death, and a very quick death, or it is not real Bolshevism. Bolshevism in general is a catastrophe, a shipwreck.
This is what you do not realise, and you will be able to realise it only when you learn our history of the last three years.
All the political tendencies which existed before the Revolution may be divided into four groups. The first group was the monarchical-i.e., the group that supported the Government. It consisted of people who sympathised with the Government partly on grounds of principle, partly on those of personal interest. Theoretically, they desired a return to autocracy, but actually their wish was only to recover and retain their privileged position. These people did not form a strict political party. The latter was formed by various organisations of nobles and political groups like the 'Union of the Russian People' or the 'Union of Arch-angel Michael'. Their programmes and tactics were very limited, and consisted chiefly in petitioning for and obtaining from the Government special grants and in the organisation of Jewish pogroms.
The second group was formed by the 'Octobrists*. This party emerged from the Revolution of 1905, and its official aim was the realisation of the principles included in the Emperor's Manifesto of October 17, in which Russia was promised all sorts of freedoms. The actual activity of this group was the struggle against any such realisation. This party was formed by wealthy bourgeois and members of the bureaucracy or of the intelligentsia who liked liberal sentiments without wishing to break away from the Government. A well known anecdote relates how the Emperor Nicholas II, wishing to be very agreeable to somebody, said: 'I am the first Octobrist in Russia.' The comment made on it was 'that was because he had signed the Manifesto but had not carried it out.'
The third group embraced the so-called 'Cadets', the word being a combination of the first letters of the Constitutional-Democratic Party. Its programme was too theoretic; its origin was to be found in the political clubs gathered round Moscow University. They wanted to remain 'legal', and therefore did not publicly declare their real republican and socialistic tendencies. Its vital element was constituted by the members of the former Zemsky Sojous, who joined the party some time after its constitution. But they were bound by the programme of their party, whose principle had more platform significance than anything else -e.g., universal suffrage on the principle of the direct, secret, and equal ballot.
If the Octobrists were insincere in one way, the Cadets were in another way, and both were equally different from what they professed to be. They were hampered by the controversial character of several points in their programme and a certain 'party discipline'. Many of its members were highly respectable, esteemed, and energetic men, who formed a group somewhat outside the party proper. They were completely lost among the rank and file of the party, and the mass of the most important members who had actual vital political experience, who knew the country and the people, never played any leading role in the party. The lead was usually taken by theorists of the professional and barrister class. All this deprived the party of strength and actual value. Its left wing was too closely connected with the socialistic parties to be of real vitality and energy.
In the fourth group we can include all the socialistic parties, working on ready-made plans and differing very little from their colleagues abroad. Their division into different groups brought into prominence two chief divergent groups: the 'Social-Revolutionaries' basing themselves chiefly on their 'agrarian policy', and the 'Social-Democrats' -orthodox Marxists. The latter party was itself subdivided into two groups those who advocated the 'minimum' programme, the Mensheviks, and those advocating the 'maximum' programme -the Bolsheviks. The most vital tendencies in the socialistic parties were the former 'Narodniki', united to a certain extent with the Social-Revolutionaries, or the Narodnyie-Socialists (Socialists of the People), who were of a less extreme tendency. Their success was hampered, however, by the socialistic ballast of their programmes.
The Revolution provoking the fall of the old regime brought to a natural end the activity of the Monar chists and Octobrists as political parties. There remained the 'Cadets', who now openly embraced the republican faith, and the different kinds of Socialists. Neither the 'Cadets' nor the Socialists were in a position to offer effective resistance against the activities of the Bolsheviks. The different groups of Socialists, however loudly they protested against the means used by the Bolsheviks, did not cease to regard them as part of their own political group. They addressed them as 'comrades' and found it possible to discuss terms of agreement with them. The attempts to arrive at real agreements were, of course, doomed to failure, for every agreement requires a certain amount of honesty or seriousness from both sides. But Bolsheviks never considered these agreements with seriousness. The chief aim of their game was to gain time and their chief object to obtain power. The rest of the Socialists did not venture to protest strongly enough or actively oppose people who repeated their own phrases about the labour system, about the struggle with capitalism, and the victory of the proletariat, The 'comrade-Bolsheviks' only laughed at the sentimentality of the 'comrade-Socialists', and using them as blind tools for their purposes worked for their aims and achieved what they wanted.
This was the extraordinary period of a 'comrade-Premier' and Commander-in-Chief, the barrister Kerensky. The 'Cadets' tried to save the last remnants of common sense, but found it impossible to work in common with the Socialists. The Socialists, on the other hand, were ready for an agreement with the Bolsheviks. The road to the victory of Bolshevism lay open.
Only after two years of humiliation and suffering has Russia succeeded in organising a Centre which does not consider it possible to compromise with Bolshevism. This Centre is for the present at the place where I am now writing, the headquarters of the Volunteer Army.
You surely do not know what this Volunteer Army really is. Its now enormous organisation has developed out of a little detachment of 3,000 men who in February 1918, began their struggle under the leadership of General Kornilov. The legendary expedition of this detachment which came to an end at the death of General Kornilov near Ekaterinodar on March 31, 1918, laid the foundation of the struggle with Bolshevism. It is described in a book written by A. A. Savorine under the title The Kornilov Expedition. It is almost the only book published in Russia during the last two years. In a later letter I hope to summarise its contents and to describe the origin of the Volunteer Army, whose history is also the history of the most recent years of Russia.
Even now it would be possible to fill many pages with an analysis of Volunteer activity. In many cases its energies are too much directed towards the restoration of the bad features of the old regime and developing them to a degree worse than they have ever been before. On the other hand, it is in many ways much too tolerant of events which are the heritage of the Provisional Government and the Bolshevik rule.
Only the future can show what is to be the result of all this. At present one thing is of importance. The Volunteer Army is fighting the Bolsheviks and struggling for a united Russia. Accordingly, Russia and the Volunteer Army are now one and the same thing.
Speaking of Russia you speak of the Volunteer Army and vice versa.
But during the first six or nine months of the Revolution no such Centre existed. Russia was then represented by Bolshevism 'made in Germany', united with the 'real Russian' profiteering, and fostered by the absurd idealism of the intelligentsia who quoted the text 'Do not overcome evil by evil.' In face of the weakness of the intelligentsia, Bolshevism very soon showed its real face. It began openly to wage war on culture, to destroy all cultural values, and to annihilate the intelligentsia as the representative of culture. The 'Nihilism' of former times was already well acquainted with contempt for culture, as if the only valuable results of the progress of humanity were high explosives. Bolshevism developed this idea to the utmost. Everything that did not help or foster the production of bombs was declared to be valueless, 'bourgeois', and deserving only of destruction and contempt. This point of view was very acceptable to the imagination of the proletarians. The workmen were at once made equals with the intelligentsia, and were even declared superior to it. Everything in which they differed from the intelligentsia was now proclaimed unnecessary and even hostile to the interests of the people and the idea of freedom. The leaders of Bolshevism openly professed that all that they asked of culture was the means of fighting the bourgeoisie and to obtain power for the proletariat. Science, arts, literature, were put under suspicion and were handed over to the watchful control of illiterate bodies of workmen. The newspapers underwent a treatment which the chiefs of the gendarmes of Nicholas I never dreamt of. From the moment the Bolsheviks seized power, all newspapers were shut down. Their place was taken by official or semi-official illiterate Bolshevik Tsvtias (News) or Pravdas (Truth). In indescribable forms these papers praised the Soviet power and poured out contempt on the 'bourgeoisie'. An unofficial paper ( socialistic, of course ) was allowed to be printed on condition that it formally supported Bolshevism, -'recognised the Soviet power' was the official expression. This meant the recognition of this power as democratic and the best in the world. It involved also the necessity of expressing the loyalty of the paper by publishing defamations and denouncements of the 'bourgeoisie' and by vile criticism of everything that was not immediately connected with Bolshevism or the Soviets. With the object of preserving the papers from any other kind of influence they were subjected to the control of the workmen of the office where the paper was printed. Their representatives formed the majority of the 'editorial body', which was empowered to dismiss old members of the staff, to appoint new ones, and generally to control the editorial administration. Even the most tolerant and unpretentious journalists had to cease their work, and very soon every journal became the prey of self-seeking people without knowledge of any kind of journalistic work.
Officially the struggle was directed against the 'bourgeoisie'. But this term in its Bolshevik interpretation embraced the whole of the intelligentsia. All persons belonging to the professions, professors, artists, doctors, engineers, and generally all specialists were proclaimed bourgeois indiscriminately and subjected to the control of their own workmen and servants. In a way their position was worse than that of the journalists. The latter were left alone, but doctors, engineers, and civil servants were forced to work under the most incredible conditions. Workmen and guards controlled their engineers; doctors were superseded by councils of patients and porters. This is not a joke -it is real life and obtains at this moment in Soviet Russia. In the spring of 1919, notwithstanding the difficulties created by Bolshevism and the Soviets, the doctors of Soviet Russia assembled in the yearly 'Girogov' meeting held in honour of the late well-known surgeon, Girogov. The evidence collected on that occasion showed that the doctors were quite helpless in combating epidemics owing to the control exercised over them by medical attendants who filled all the responsible offices.
War on the intelligentsia was inevitable on the part of Bolshevism. The intelligentsia could not be deceived for long. It would soon have discovered the underlying lies of Bolshevism. To render the intelligentsia harmless, to prevent its explaining the truth to the people, it was proclaimed bourgeois, its members declared outlaws, and purposely confused with the bourgeois against whom the struggle was originally directed. This was logically inevitable. The intelligentsia, being inclined, generally speaking, to believe in revolutionary phrases, would have otherwise joined Bolshevism and driven it to another line of development. It would have insisted on meeting the debts to which Bolshevism had attached its signature without dreaming of paying anything. In other words, the intelligentsia would have insisted on the fulfilment of the promises given by the Bolsheviks to the people, which the Bolsheviks themselves consider only as a bait thrown to make fishing easier. Had the intelligentsia not been so decidedly denied participation in the Revolution it would have spoiled the game of Bolshevism. The Bolsheviks would never have been able to humiliate Russia to the degree they have. The appropriateness of their measures -i.e., the ostracism of the intelligentsia -is so striking that it involuntarily evokes the thought of a German invention, so well did it fit the purpose of the new Bolshevik state.
As a general rule, Bolshevism based itself on the worst forces underlying Russian life. How far they have succeeded in bringing those forces into existence is a question with which I will deal separately. The provocation of the feelings of the people against the intelligentsia was a thing more easy to achieve in Russia than anywhere else, for the Russian 'people' are as a rule suspicious of every 'gentleman'. In Russia all epidemics of cholera are always connected with rumours of doctors poisoning wells or their patients in the hospitals and are usually followed by pogroms [aka, organized massacres] of doctors.
A special aspect of Bolshevism has not yet been sufficiently insisted on. I mean the participation in it of decidedly criminal elements. In former days the population of Russian prisons used to be divided into two classes, the minority of 'comrade-politicals' and the vast majority of 'comrade-criminals'. I think that nobody of the 'comrade-political' ever dreamt that the leading part in the Revolution would be played by the 'comrade-criminals'. But this is the truth. The future historian will have to think out a new definition for the Soviet power: some new word showing the prominent part played by the criminal element, something like 'kakourgocracy' or 'paranomocracy'. Henry George said in Progress and Poverty that our civilisation does not require any foreign barbarians for its destruction. It carries in its very bosom the barbarians who will destroy it. Bolshevism consists just in the organisation and gathering of these barbarian forces existing inside contemporary society, hostile to culture and civilisation.
This is a vital point which you miss when you are speaking of Bolshevism in England. You will realise it only when it is too late.
Letter V
Ekaterinodar
I shall have to deal with Bolshevism and the history of its development on another occasion. For the present I shall only try to sketch the outlines of the present conditions in Russia and the forces underlying them.
The line of battle of the Volunteer Army of General Denikin against the Bolsheviks, i.e., Soviet Russia, stretches on a long curved front from Odessa to Astrakhan. The central portion of this front, in the direction of Moscow, is holding its own at present, and at the moment of writing the Volunteer Army has conquered Orel and is advancing in the direction of Toula and Briansk. On the sector between Kiev and Odessa fighting is proceeding with the remnant of the Ukrainian Army, i.e., with the Bolsheviks under another name; and the final clearance of this territory from all kinds of Bolsheviks is merely a matter of time. The position of the Volga and the Caucasus is, however, not so good.
The withdrawal of the English forces from Baku and the rest of Transcaucasia -a move so loudly advocated by the English friends of the Bolsheviks -has created many difficulties for the Volunteer Army and given new hope to the Bolsheviks of Baku and Astrakhan. The mountaineers of Dagestan and Circassia revolted at once, and nobody can foresee the end of this new struggle. The Bolsheviks are making desperate attempts to take Tsaritzine and break through to Astrakhan. If they succeed in doing this they will find it easy to join the Dagestan revolt, and then the danger of the spread of Bolshevism over the whole of the Caucasus may become acute. The Bolsheviks will then also succeed in seizing the naphtha districts, which undoubtedly will change their position for the better. The Turkestan and Transcaspian districts are in the full possession of the Bolsheviks.
The position on the Koltchak front seems uncertain. You will certainly have more n
P.D. Ouspensky
Introduction
From 1907 until 1913 Ouspensky wrote fairly regularly for a Russian newspaper, mostly on foreign affairs. At the same time he was working on various books based on the idea that our consciousness is an incomplete state not far removed from sleep, and also that our three-dimensional view of the universe is inadequate and incomplete.
Hoping that answers to some of the questions he had posed might have been found by more ancient civilisations, he made an extensive tour of Egypt, Ceylon and India.
On his return Ouspensky learnt that Russia was at war. For a time impending events did not prevent him from lecturing about his travels to very large audiences in St. Petersburg and Moscow. But in 1917 while revolution was spreading through all the Russias, and the Bolsheviks were establishing their reign of terror, Ouspensky was living in various temporary quarters in South Russia, in conditions of great danger and hardship.
Until he managed to reach Turkey in 1920 he and those around him were completely cut off from the outside world, unable to receive or send news even as far as the next town, constantly on the alert to avoid being picked up and murdered by the Bolsheviks.
In 1919 Ouspensky somehow found a way to send a series of articles to the New Age, which, under the skilful editorship of A. R. Orage, was the leading literary, artistic and cultural weekly paper published in England. These five articles appeared in six instalments as 'Letters from Russia'. They give a detached but horrific description of the total breakdown of public order, and are reprinted here for the first time.
A remarkable feature of the 'Letters' is that while the revolution was in progress and the Bolshevik regime not fully established, Ouspensky foresaw with unusual clarity the inevitability of the tyranny described by Solzhenitsyn fifty years later.
During the winter of 1919 and the spring of 1920 C. E. Bechhofer (afterwards known as Bechhofer-Roberts) was observing events in Russia as a British correspondent who spoke Russian and had previous experience of the country and people. He had met Ouspensky before 1914, both in Russia and in India; he was a regular contributor to the New Age and had himself translated the first of Ouspensky's 'Letters from Russia', written in July 1919. In Bechhofer's book In Denikin's Russia the author describes the week or two he spent with Ouspensky and Zaharov above a sort of barn at Rostov-on-the-Don. With its pathos and humour this passage makes a fitting epilogue to Ouspensky's smuggled 'Letters'.
Fairfax Hall
Letter I
Ekaterinodar, July 25, 1919
It is now two years since I last saw the New Age, and I do not know what is being said and thought and written in England and what you know. I can only guess. During this period we here have lived through so many marvels that I honestly pity everybody who has not been here, everybody who is living in the old way, everybody who is ignorant of what we now know. You do not even know the significance of the words 'living in the old way'. You have not the necessary perspective; you cannot get away from yourselves and look at yourselves from another point of view. But we did so long ago. To understand what 'living in the old way' means, you would need to be here, in Russia, and to hear people saying, and yourself, too, from time to time, 'Shall we ever live again in the old way? . . .' For you this phrase is written in a quite unintelligible language -do not try to understand it! You will surely begin to think that it is something to do with the re-establishment of the old regime or the oppression of the working classes, and so on. But in actual fact it means something very simple. It means, for example: When shall we be able to buy shoe-leather again, or shaving-soap, or a box of matches ?
But, no, it is no use. I feel sure you will not understand me.
You are used to considering questions on a much wider basis; the question of the box of matches will seem to you excessively trivial and uninteresting. I see perfectly clearly that we have lost utterly and for ever the ability to understand one another.
A lady of my acquaintance, whose husband has been abroad all this time, while she has been here with her little son, said to me recently: 'I am frightened of the moment when my husband and I will meet again. He won't understand. Perhaps he will ask me why Alex hasn't been learning English; and I -I shall not know what to say. Indeed, we shall both of us be silent the whole time. Every trifle will create a gulf between us. In the old days we understood one another very well. But now we shall be distant from each other, strangers. . . .'
I understood. We know too much to be able to speak to you on equal terms. We know the true relation of history and words to facts. We know what such words as 'civilisation' and 'culture' mean; we know what 'revolution' means, and 'a Socialist State' and 'winter', and 'bread', and 'stove', and 'soap', and many, many more of the same kind. You have no sort of idea of them.
We know that 'war', and 'polities', and 'economic life' -in a word, all those things about which one reads in the papers, and in which those big two-dimensional creatures called Nations and States live and move and have their being -we know that all this is one thing, but that the life of individual men and women is quite another thing, having no points of contact with the former, except when it does not allow the latter to live. We know now that the whole life of individual men and women is a struggle against these big creatures. We are able to understand without difficulty that a Nation is a creature standing on a far lower stage of development than individual men and women; it is about on the level of the zoophytes, slowly moving in one direction or the other and consuming one another. Thank Heavens we are now beginning to perceive that we are not so.
I am not preparing to set out an esoteric philosophy for your attention. Not in the least. Life, as we see it here, shows us that it is not at all what we used to think it, and that, in any case, we must not regard it as a single whole. A fight is going on within it of blind, struggling forces; and through this fight we are somehow able to steer a course.
If we begin, in what is left of Russia to-day, to examine this life of the great forces, we observe primarily that everything in it acts according to one general rule, which I may call the Law of Opposite Aims and Results. In other words, everything leads to results that are contrary to what people intend to bring about and towards which they strive.
The people who started the war with Germany and pointed out the necessity of destroying Germany and militarism, and so on, did not in the least intend to overthrow the monarchy in Russia and create the Revolution. And the men who dreamed of the Revolution and liberty, and so on, did not in the least expect to bring in the epoch of Kerensky's speeches ('Enough of words; the time is come to act!'). And Kerensky did not intend to create the conditions in which Bolshevism could develop and ripen so well. And the Bolsheviks did not propose to live in a state of perpetual war and to introduce into Russia what is in actual fact the dictatorship of the criminal clement. In precisely the same way the people who are now struggling to bring about the re-creation of a great, united, indivisible and so on Russia are gathering results very little resembling what they are striving for. And, on the other hand, their opponents -not the Bolsheviks, but those others who favour the idea of a federation of separate and independent States, instead of a single Russia -are destroying every chance of such a division, and are strengthening the idea of unity.
This side of our own life is very curious and characteristic from the point of view of this same Law. The idea of self-governing units is in itself very alluring. The evils ofcentralisation have long been demonstrated. But none of the people who used to examine in theory the status of small self-governing units can ever have thought that the first coming to life of such organisations would begin with their all fighting with one another. But this is what happens. Before anything else is even thought of, the frontiers are closed, customshouses are established, passage through their territories is made difficult, as is likewise the taking in or out of articles, and then the local politicians start making speeches about the wicked schemes and general depravity of the neighbouring State, about the necessity of getting rid of its evil influence upon local conditions, etc., etc. And at once the dull rattling of weapons begins in one direction or the other.
The Russia of to-day presents an interesting picture. To travel from Mineralny Vody to Rostov and thence to Novorossisk, you pass through four States, each with different laws, different prices, different sorts of police, united only by a single common quality, namely, that without bribes (and such enormous bribes as were never even dreamed of in the old Russia) you cannot go far. For example, for a railway ticket that costs 1oo roubles, you have to pay a bribe of 200 or 300, or even 500 roubles. Of course, this is not the case always or everywhere; but, wherever there are any prohibitions, bribes are essential. If you want something more important than a railway ticket, you have to pay correspondingly more. Everyone knows about it. Everyone talks about it. And everyone accepts it as permissible and inevitable. We have understood that it is a point of contact between historical events and the life of individual men and women.
If you want to see what Russia now is really like, try to imagine the following happening in England, then you will see how much more interesting and varied our life is than yours.
The scene is Rostov station about a month ago. The night train for Ekaterinodar is about to leave. There are no tickets to be had. This means that you must pay a porter 140 or more roubles for a third-class ticket costing 40 roubles. For this you get a ticket for a numbered seat. But when the passengers get into the train it appears that for every seat four tickets have been sold. Then even we begin to be irritated. An official appears, something like an old-time gendarme, and invites anyone who wishes, to remain behind and make a complaint. When he is given the number of the porters who sold the tickets, and is told to fetch the stationmaster and the booking-clerk, he merely smiles at the naivete of the questions and says that these gentlemen are busy.
And now if we turn to the life of individuals and see how it develops 'points of contact' with history, we observe that the pre-eminent subject of conversation is the strangeness of our all being alive (not all, of course, but we who survive), and the reflection that we may all perhaps be alive for a little while longer. The next favourite topic is the high price of everything, generally how much such and such a thing costs.
The prices of all products and necessities have risen by twenty, fifty, a hundred, or six hundred times. Workmen's wages have risen twenty, fifty, or even a hundred times. But the salary of an ordinary 'brainworker' -a teacher, journalist or doctor -has risen in the best cases by no more than three times, and very often has not risen at all, but has actually decreased. If you earn 2,000 roubles a month, you are considered to be doing well; but often one meets with earnings of 1 ,000, 800 or 600 roubles. But the cheapest pair of boots cost 900 roubles, a pound of tea 150 roubles, a bottle of wine 60 roubles, and so on. On the whole, you may reckon a rouble now as worth a pre-war kopeck, i.e., its hundredth part.
You will ask how it is possible to live under such conditions. And this is the most occult aspect of the whole question.
I will answer for myself: I personally am still alive only because my boots and trousers and other articles of clothing -all 'old campaigners' -are still holding together. When they end their existence, I shall evidently end mine.
In general, to realise these prices, you must imagine that everything in England has grown correspondingly dear, viz., boots, £90; a suit, £400; a pound of sugar, £10; and that your income remains precisely what it was before. Then you will understand our Russian life to-day.
You must understand, too, the psychological side of these prices. In some people they create panic, in others complete prostration, in others again a kind of mystic fatalism. In primitive people they evoke a thirst for profits, because never in any place were profits made so simply and easily as now in Russia. The prices are different in every place. To carry something from one town to another is to make money. Prices rise by leaps and bounds. At Ekaterinodar, which is considered the cheapest place in Russia to-day, the price of bread doubled itself in a fortnight, rising from 11/2 roubles a pound to 3 and even 31/2. Everybody realises that.this is the result ofsome big 'deal'. Someone is putting millions into his pocket. But since it is not exactly clear who, in this particular case, is doing it, everybody prefers to be silent. But 'the masses' rush to take part in the general looting, the fascination of which excites their imagination. For a bag of flour or of bread, a basket of eggs, or a jar of butter may bring them a whole fortune as reckoned in the old values. So the trains and stations are crowded with people with bags and baskets; they carry typhus and cholera, and regulate commercial relations between the States of the Don, Terek and Kuban.
This 'speculation' is one of the most prominent symptoms of our life. It began in the first year of the war, and has grown to such an extent that we cannot exist without it. When a 'war upon speculation' is declared, we all begin to groan and cry out. For it means that some article of necessity -milk, butter or eggs -will temporarily disappear altogether from the market, and when afterwards it comes back it will cost three or four times what it cost before.
In nothing has the Law of Opposite Aims and Results appeared more clearly than in the war on profiteering. Nothing seems to touch an ordinary inhabitant who does not take part in speculation so seriously as the war with it.
You will ask what else we live for. Russia was once famous for its literature and its art. Yes, but that all disappeared long ago. Literature, art and science have all been abolished by the Bolsheviks, and they remain abolished.
Ah, but I forgot! The Bolsheviks, I said. I quite forgot that you do not know what this word means. Even if you have seen Bolsheviks in England, believe me they are not the real thing. In my next letter I hope to tell you what Bolsheviks are.
Letter II
Ekaterinodar, September 18, 1919
recently succeeded in obtaining several copies of English newspapers for the months of July and August. They were the first to come into my hands after more than two years spent in a country completely cut off from the rest of Europe. And I read the old copies of The Times, the Newcastle paper, the North Mail, as they can only be read by a man who has just been released from gaol or who has returned from a journey to the North Pole. Very soon, however, the first feeling of happiness gave way to another, of fear.
Your people do not see or know anything, just as two years ago we did not see or know anything ourselves. And I wished I could shout to you: 'Look at us, look at our present state! Then you will understand the meaning of what is happening to you, of what is awaiting you if you fail to see in time where you are being led.' All I read in your Press I mentally divided into three groups. The first consists of the usual newsitems: latest news, daily events, murders, suicides, the flight of the R.37, the Ulster question, the Prohibition campaign, etc., etc. Behind this news, however, one feels the desire to make everybody believe that nothing exceptional is happening or has happened, and that life continues as before in the customary and wellknown way, a little too pronounced to be quite natural.
Unhappily in reality this life is already at an end, not in our country alone. Something new, yet unknown, is abroad in your country as well. If you only knew our history for the last two years you would realise what is happening to you and have a look at the future.
The second group of news makes me sure of the fact of the approaching future. I can feel in the letters, articles, etc., a pronounced feeling of fear. The chief topic at present is the high cost of living. You begin to feel the neighbourhood of the precipice! There is, for instance, a letter by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to The Times about the causes of high prices and the means to combat them, or else I find under discussion the Profiteering Bill, and generally everything that is being written and said about prices of coal, dresses, fruits, butter -in fact of everything. Something is happening, and nobody can understand what it reallyis. All that is being said on the Profiteering Bill is very characteristic. Everybody understands it to be a measure of self-deception, but nobody can think of anything better. And suddenly I fancied daybreak in London, the town yet asleep, and the old Mr Sherlock Holmes leaving his flat in Baker Street accompanied by his faithful friend, Dr Watson. In his long coat with turned-up collar he is going out to look for the causes of the high cost of living. Yesterday again all prices went up, on cabbages and lettuces, and there are no reasons for it. Poor old Sherlock Holmes, you will never succeed in untying the knot in which England is now entangling herself. There is only one way of doing it. Tell Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to send Sherlock Holmes to Russia! I will show him everything; he will understand everything and he will see everything. The seeds that are only just springing up in England have already revealed their flowers and fruits in Russia. And about the qualities of these fruits and flowers there is no doubt possible. I include in this group what is being written about Russia by her friends, i.e., those who consider it necessary to help Russia, and to help her in her struggle with the unknown. There is also here great uncertainty. To help, yes! Of course help is necessary, but a help not too substantial or strong, but such that there may not be any serious results!
And finally, the third group of what can be found in your newspapers. Here, on the contrary, there are no doubts or uncertainty. This news tells ofthe indignation of the workmen with the policy of the Government in the case of bourgeois-capitalistic Russia. They ask for the immediate recall of the tanks and the armies out of Russia. They threaten a strike if help is continued to the reactionary forces fighting the young Russian democracy. Even better sounds the advice given to liberated Russia to make peace with the Bolsheviks, to draw a frontier and to live peacefully without disquieting Europe. I would like you to understand how we feel when reading this third group of news. Imagine that robbers have broken into your house. They have got hold of almost the whole house, killed half your family, and are starving the rest to death and shooting down people from time to time. At the moment when you have begun to fight the robbers and succeeded in liberating some of the people, you are advised to make peace with the intruders, to give them halfofyour house, leave the rest of your family in their power and live peacefully yourself without troubling your neighbours. Or imagine the siege of Delhi. The armies coming to liberate the town are advised to make peace with the besieging armies and leave them to do what they like with the town. If you clearly realise this picture you will understand the true meaning of the advice and the source whence it comes.
There in 'besieged Delhi' are our friends and relatives. Many of those who are now in the South have left their fathers, mothers, wives and children there. We do not know who is still alive and who is already dead. In any case, there are not many of them left. All news that reaches us from there tells us of somebody's death. It is a long time since we have had any other news. Hunger, cholera, typhus, cold, violence, murder and suicides -this is the life of the North. For over half a year the armies of Yudenitch have been near Petrograd. As early as last winter the papers wrote that as soon as the ice broke it would be possible to buy food, Petrograd would be taken. Everybody who had relatives there waited for the spring to come, counting the days and hoping that those who survived the awful winter would be saved. But the Neva was freed from ice, the summer has passed; it is now autumn, and winter is nearing, but Petrograd is still in the hands of the Bolsheviks; and of those who were alive in the spring only a few are left now. The reason for all this is perhaps that the friends of Bolshevism -friends avowed and secret -have succeeded in assembling such a cloud of lies around it that commonsense and reason, all possibility of understanding, have been completely submerged by it. I am sincerely convinced that, could England realise the true meaning of Bolshevism, neither the weariness with the war nor the dislike of being mixed up in foreign matters, nor the urgent necessity for reforms at home, would have prevented the British people from helping Russia. I am quite sure that a regular crusade would have started in England against Bolshevism could the British nation only realise the meaning of events in Russia, their causes and the goal they are leading us to.
But I would like it to be clearly understood that I do not want to start such a campaign, nor do I ask for help for Russia. First of all, I do not believe that the voice of a single man can have any effect on historical events. Secondly, I am not a politician, but merely an observer. Thirdly, it is already too late! In history events are prepared long before they are made public.
The months that have elapsed since the Peace Conference have probably outlined the course of events for many years to come. Now we can only wait and see what will be the result. At present, while I am writing this, a fire is breaking out and spreading over Italy.
The reason for this, as well as for many other things that will happen in Europe, lies in the fact that when peace was made no decision was taken about extinguishing the fire in Russia.
Now as to England's relationship with Russia, we must acknowledge that England's help to Russia has been very substantial indeed. Without it the Volunteer Army would not have been able to do anything against the Bolsheviks and would have been crushed. To speak quite plainly, I can now sit here and write solely because England helped us. But the struggle with Bolshevism is far from being at an end, and the results are still unknown. The present position can be summed up as follows:— In European Russia the Volunteer Army is scoring successes. It is possible that soon it will be able to save Moscow. But the Bolsheviks are pressing hard on Koltchak and making their way to Siberia. It is quite possible that, evicted from Europe, they will move into Asia. In this case, if they succeed in reaching the Chinese frontier, the position may be transformed and become very disquieting and dangerous for us, and not for us alone. We have to bear in mind that the armies consisting of Chinese have proved to be the hardest fighters and the most reliable force of the Bolsheviks. We know, too, from trustworthy sources, that these Chinese were recruited for the Bolsheviks in China by German agents. Recently the newspapers have brought the news that these agents are continuing their work of recruiting for the Red Army in China and that the Bolsheviks are expecting large reinforcements of mercenaries, ready to fight anybody and go anywhere. If we try to realise the number of such recruits that China is able to furnish the Bolsheviks with, we shall begin to understand that not only our future, but the future of the whole of Europe, may depend on the course events may take during the next few months.
The future of Koltchak may be fateful for Europe.
Japan can then save the situation by quickly moving her armies into Siberia and Russia. But I doubt whether she will do it. The government of Koltchak is probably delaying and will continue to delay negotiations with Japan. It is not able to offer a bribe serious enough for the eventual help. Meanwhile every moment is of importance, and no price is too high for assistance on condition that it be given quickly, decisively, and to the end. But apart from the procrastination and the superfluous amour propre of the Russians themselves, this assistance can be hampered by the competition of America, who also has designs on Siberian concessions. Or still more can the collision of interests between Japan and America in China, which is now assuming the prospect of an actual conflict, have a disastrous effect on their policy.
Behind these unexpected effects of a mise en scene I think I can perceive the hand of an experienced German schemer. Be that as it may, the chronologist of our times may note that in the autumn of 1919 the fate of Europe was in the hands of Japan. What Japan will do we shall learn next year. Certainly this is not the only possible way out. We can still hope that Koltchak will succeed in stopping the Bolshevik advance and later in throwing them out of Siberia; or else that Denikin, after capturing European Russia, will succeed in crushing the Red Army before the latter in its retreat to Asia can avail itself of Chinese support. We are hoping for this; it is our duty to hope for it; nothing else is left for us. But the worst is that even in the event of the success of Koltchak and Denikin against the Bolsheviks it allows the latter a long period for doing irreparable harm to Europe and Asia.
Such is the position at present. Unhappily, you do not realise what will happen if the Bolsheviks should gain a victory over Russia, or even if Bolshevism is allowed to remain for some time as a State, governing immense territories in Eastern Europe and Western Asia. The reason why you do not see the harm done to civilisation by the rule of Bolshevism is undoubtedly the fact that you do not realise its true meaning. You mistake it for what it wishes to be mistaken for. But the essence of Bolshevism lies precisely in what it is not mistaken for. You think Bolshevism a political system that can be discussed, but whose existence cannot be denied. In reality, Bolshevism is not a political system at all. It is something very old, that at different times has borne different names. The Russian language of the eighteenth century knew a name, preserved until now -'pougachevchina' -which renders very well the essence of Bolshevism. Pougachev was a Ural Cossack who pretended to be the deceased Emperor Peter III, and who raised an insurrection against Catherine II, and for a time succeeded in seizing half of Russia. He plundered the estates of landowners, hanged their owners and priests, gave the land to the peasantry, etc. A classical description of the 'pougachevchina' is to be found in a novel by our poet Pushkin, A Captain's Daughter. But Bolshevism of the twentieth century has one peculiarity -it is 'made in Germany', and Germany knows how to make use of it. Employing Bolshevism in 1917 to break up the Russian Army, Germany destroyed the danger menacing her Eastern front. You were in great peril, and you know it. But now you have decided that the peril is gone, and you are mistaken. Germany is not annihilated or even weakened. She is energetically and cleverly preparing a revanche. Her chief enemy is England, and the chief trump in her pack is Russian Bolshevism.
Letter III
Ekaterinodar, September 25, 1919
In the meantime the state of Russia, even in parts long liberated from the Bolsheviks, remains difficult, and, strange to say, is becoming worse compared with what it was immediately after the Bolsheviks were expelled. Prices rise above all possible count. In the average they are one hundred times, and in many cases two, three, or even many more hundred times, higher than before. I quote several instances to give you a better idea of the position, and give the prices in pounds at the pre-war rate. Ordinary writing paper costs £3.10s. for twenty-seven sheets; a newspaper of small format is sold at 6s. There are no books to be bought. Old schoolbooks are worth almost their weight in gold. A steel pen is bought for 2s. or 3s., tea for £16 to £20, coffee for £6 a pound. Bread in Ekaterinodar, which is supposed to be the cheapest place in Russia to-day, costs 5s. or 6s. a pound. In other places, e.g., Novorossisk, or in the Terek district, it is sold at 10s. to 12s. a pound.
How people manage to live at such a cost is a riddle to me. The pay of the workmen or the small officeholders has increased, if not as much as prices, at least in a certain proportion to them; but the pay of brainworkers has often decreased compared with what it was before the Revolution, and in several instances has disappeared altogether owing to unemployment. And, God knows why, it is considered that a 'brainworker' has no right to protest or to claim any improvement of his position.
I spent the winter in a small town of the Terek district. There the teachers of public schools (gymnasia) did not receive their salaries, i.e., they got neither the full amount nor did they get it when it was due. For some sort of reason, however, this is considered to be quite natural, and nobody takes any notice of it.
The Government does something for the military and its own immediate workers. But people not engaged in either military or other Government work are left to themselves, deprived of all assistance and of their elementary rights. It sounds like a joke, but it is reality; if you are not on military service you cannot get a railway ticket unless you are prepared to pay an enormous bribe. Many towns are closed to you, nor are you allowed to rent a room or a flat.
'The right to live', i.e., a written certificate authorising you to reside in any particular place -a measure which used to be applied to Jews -is now a rule for everybody. I do not know whom we have to thank for such a brilliant solution of the problem of personal rights, but facts remain facts.
Broadly speaking, the Russia that existed before is gone, and gone long ago. There is a bewildered and hungry country, where people are thrown out ofrailway carriages; where every conception of cultural values is gone; where any intellectual life ceased long ago; where, at the same time, the number of people under the command of somebody or other is continually increasing. And the sole aim of these persons who command is to improve their own position at the expense, of those who are deprived of all rights.
Bolshevism is a poisonous plant; it poisons, even if extirpated or trampled on, the very soil in which it grew, and everybody who gets in touch with it. Perhaps those who fight it are poisoned more strongly by it than anybody else.
If you were to talk with a simple Russian peasant about the essence of Bolshevism, this is probably the plain and open-hearted description you would hear:
'Everything for oneself or those nearest you, and nothing for the others.' Unhappily, this is the most poisonous seed in Bolshevism.
We have come back again to Bolshevism as the cause of everything that happens now in Russia.
Bolshevism begins with loud and fierce declamations. To pave its way it chooses the whole arsenal of extreme socialistic and political doctrines. It promises the people all that they ever dreamt of, all they could dream of. Never for a moment does it think of what can or cannot be fulfilled.
These boundless promises form the outstanding feature of what I call the 'first phase' of Bolshevism.
Hungry, weary, injured, scarcely rational people begin to believe. They always believe when something is promised to them.
The Russian Bolsheviks promised peace. It was their trump card; their struggle against the tragico-comic government of Kerensky in 1917.
The personal staff of the advocates of Bolshevism is also a peculiar thing. It consists in its greater part of neurasthenics. A little note I read in one of the English newspapers told me a lot. The Bolshevik literature was brought over to England by Mrs Pankhurst. There are names that always mean a lot.
The first phase of Bolshevism is composed of words; first of all promises, then calls to vengeance, lies, defamations, and again promises and promises.
People with little culture, and thrown out of the usual course of their lives, are easily and deeply affected by such fireworks of words. They believe and follow those madmen, or scoundrels, who lead them towards the precipice.
The change that occurred in the meaning of the word 'Bolshevik' is also very peculiar. The word itself sounds very awkward and foreign in Russian. It is not a very exact and grammatical translation of the word 'Maximalist'. But the Russian people attached to it a meaning of their own. I personally overheard a conversation two years ago between two soldiers. One of them, who, judging by his appearance, was of very 'advanced ideas' (they used to be called then comrade deserters), gave a lesson to another, a naive village boy. 'We are the greater number, do you understand,' he was saying, 'and, therefore, we are called Bolsheviks.'
For him, apparently, the word 'Bolshevik' corresponded to the word 'majority', and this is the sense that is still very widespread among the public.
I overheard this conversation on one of the journeys I had to undertake in the summer of 1917. Several times I had to cross Russia from Petrograd to Transcaucasia and back again. On the first of these journeys I met with another 'phase of Bolshevism', turning already from words to deeds, and using for its purpose different people and different arguments.
It took us five days to travel from Petrograd to Tiflis, where we arrived in the middle of the night. The railway station was crowded with soldiers -it was the Caucasian Army leaving the front and dispersing
under the influence of Bolshevik propaganda. We were told that it was unsafe to walk through the town at night, and we had to wait until the morning. I had hardly slept at all during the journey, and now I was slumbering, sitting in the buffet in an armchair. Suddenly terrifying cries and shouts were heard on the platform, quickly followed by several shots. The company was, of course, panic-stricken; all jumped from their seats, fearing what was to come. Very soon, however, soldiers rushed into the buffet, shouting 'Comrades, do not worry; we have only shot a thief' It appeared that they had seized somebody who had stolen three roubles out of somebody's pocket, and had therefore shot him on the spot. Over the body of the murdered man a meeting began to gather discussing whether it had been the right thing to do or not. The meeting was so excited that it very nearly came to blows and shots. The clamour was terrifying; several of the passengers went to look at the body of the deceased man lying on the platform.
An hour later there were more shots and cries another thief was seized and shot. Towards daybreak a third thief was shot, but it appeared that he was not a thief at all, but a militiaman -i.e., a policeman. All this happened on the platform, separated from us merely by a glass door. The general trouble was so great that nobody could understand anything. There on the platform lay three bloodstained bodies.
Of course, this was only the beginning. The soldiers were still friendly towards the public. The time had not yet come; everybody was still getting bread and shoes. But it was quite clear that as soon as there should be no bread and shoes, those with guns would get bread and shoes from those without guns.
While this process of 'deepening' the Revolution was taking place, the leaders of Bolshevism were making their way to power. At last, thanks to murder, lies, unrealisable promises, and using all criminal elements available in Russia, they succeeded in reaching their object. But now they found themselves in a really tragical position. I would like it to be clearly understood how tragic their position was. The Bolsheviks had no constructive programme, and in fact they could not have one. Everybody realised that none of their promises could be fulfilled. They had only to sit quietly and not stir. Any move they made rendered matters worse. It was enough to 'nationalise' a product for it to disappear from the market. 'Socialised' works and factories were busy at meetings and did no work. Life itself taught the Bolsheviks that they had only to continue the revolutionary policy of Kerensky -i.e., to print paper money and make speeches. If they did not like it, it was left to them to fly to Switzerland to arrange conspiracies and start terrorism against Bolshevism in Russia. I think that they themselves realised at that time that they were unable to do anything; the possibility of achieving any creative work was denied to them -their work was destruction alone. They were saved for some time by the struggle that started against them.
But the destruction was at that time an accomplished fact. Russian life no longer existed. All that has happened since is nearer to death than to life. In fact, Russian life was brought to a standstill from the first moment of the Revolution. This moment meant the destruction of any possibility of cultural work. Unhappily, only a few understood its real meaning.
The following is a personal opinion: the public, the man in the street, had a deeper insight into the Revolution and understood the events much better than the representatives of the Press, the literary men, and especially the politicians. These had lost all power of reasoning and were carried away by the whirlwind of events. Unhappily, their opinion was estimated to be Russian opinion, and, what is worse, they themselves mistook their views for the will of the nation.
It was at that time considered obligatory to profess joy in regard to the Revolution. All who did not feel it had to remain silent. Many, of course, understood that there was nothing to rejoice about, but they were scattered, and even had they spoken their voices would not have been heard in the general chorus of delight.
I well remember one evening of the summer of 1917, in Petrograd. I had been on a late visit at General A.'s, whose wife was a well-known artist, and I was returning home at night with M., the editor of a large artistic monthly. We had to stroll through the whole town. The whole evening through we never mentioned politics. Our host was right in the middle of political life, but he realised plainly enough the hopelessness of all efforts, and politics were in this house felt to be a skeleton at the feast. Only when out in the street did the topic of our conversation become politics.
'Do you know,' said M., 'there are idiots, even among cultured people, who feel happy in the Revolution, who believe it to be a liberation of something. They do not realise that, if it means liberation, it is liberation from the possibility of eating, drinking, working, walking, using tramways, reading books, buying newspapers, and so on.'
'Just so,' I said. 'People don't understand that if anything exists, it does so thanks to inertia. The initial push from the past is still working, but it cannot be renewed! There lies the horror. Sooner or later its energy will be exhausted and all will stop, one thing after another. Tramways, railways, post-all these are working, thanks to inertia alone. But inertia cannot last for ever. You will realise that the fact of our walking here and that nobody is assaulting us is abnormal. It is made possible by inertia alone. The man who very soon will be robbing and murdering on this very spot has not yet realised the fact that he can do it now without fear of punishment. In a few months it won't be possible to walk here at night-time, and some months later it will be unsafe to do it during the day.'
'Undoubtedly,' added M., 'but nobody sees it. All are expecting something good to happen, although nothing was ever so bad before, and there are so few reasons to expect anything good to happen.'
I have never seen M. since that evening, and do not know what has happened to him. Nor do I know if General A. and his wife are still alive, but I have often, in the course of these two years, remembered this conversation. Everything unhappily, has proved the truth of our conclusions so closely.
The next 'phase of Bolshevism' proved to be a touching community with another trait of Russian war life, and very soon this trait became the outstanding feature of Bolshevism. The original cause of the destruction of Russia, what led to the Revolution, was robbery -i.e., what you as a polite and cultured people call profiteering.
Marauding began with the first month of the war and penetrated continuously farther and deeper, sucking out the very spirit of life. No measures were taken against it in Russia, and it grew quickly and immensely and ate up all Russia. Bolshevism, as I have pointed out, assimilated itself to robbery. The masses wanted to have their share in the general plundering of Russia. Bolshevism sanctioned this plundering and gave it the name of Socialism.
I remember a comic occurrence in Petrograd in the same summer of 1917. A strike was called of the employees in manufacturing and haberdashery shops. A crowd of the employees, men and girls, walked in procession along the Nevsky from one shop to another, requiring them to be closed. I was on the Nevsky with a friend of mine. He became interested in the matter and inquired from a young man, obviously very proud of his new role of a 'striker', about the causes and aims of the strike. The lad began hurriedly and excitedly on an explanation.
'They,' he said, 'have profiteered since the beginning of the war. We know very well how much was paid for different articles and at what prices these were sold. You cannot conceive what profits they made.'
'Well,' asked my friend as a joke, 'you undoubtedly require now the reduction of prices and the return of unfairly made profits?'
'No-o,' answered the young man, obviously confused; 'our claims are made according to the programme.'
'What programme?'
'I don't know. In fact, the Party advised us that all salaries are to be raised by 100 per cent (or 60 per cent-I do not remember), and "they" won't give us it. "They" agree to do it from January; they want to save the profits made for the two years past. But we won't leave them alone.'
The question was quite simple. Young men and girls had for three years running witnessed a daylight plundering, and now demanded their share in the robbery. They were led by a party -which party it was I do not even know, but surely it was not the Bolshevist Party. This was busy with other questions. At that time, however, all parties were working for Bolshevism.
Letter IV
Ekaterinodar
My friend proved to be a true prophet. Very soon 'sharing in the plunder for the whole time it had been going on' became the leading principle of Bolshevism. Meanwhile -i.e., autumn, 1917-the actual traits of Bolshevism began to reveal themselves. They form the very essence of the movement, and their application consisted in a struggle against culture, against the 'intelligentsia', against freedom of any kind. People now began to realise the true meaning of Bolshevism; they began to lose the illusions which led them to confuse Bolshevism with a socialistic and revolutionary movement. These illusions, which we have lost, seem now to prevail among yourselves. Persons inclined to abstract modes of thinking persist in seeing in Bolshevism not what it actually is, but what it ought to be according to their theoretical deductions. These people will have a very sad awakening, and this awakening is not 'beyond the mountains', as the Russian proverb says.
The causes of the success of Bolshevism in Russia, which came as a surprise to the Bolsheviks themselves, can be found in the complete destruction of the economical bases of Russian life brought about by the war, in the incredibly mixed political views prevailing among the Russian intelligentsia, varying between patriotic chauvinism and anarchical pacifism, and chiefly in the instability of Russian political thought and the purely theoretical and demagogic character of the chief Russian political parties and tendencies. There was no party created by reality and resulting from actual existing conditions. All that was opposed to Bolshevism consisted of theories alone, theories and phrases very often the same as those employed by the Bolsheviks themselves.
The Bolsheviks knew what they were aiming at; nobody else knew. This is the reason for their success. Of course, their success is only temporary, as, generally speaking, nobody can be a Bolshevik for ever. It is a sickness from which people either recover or, if its germs have entered too deeply into the organism, they die.
Lately the comparison of Bolshevism with disease has become common. This is not sufficiently true.
Bolshevism is not only a disease; it is death, and a very quick death, or it is not real Bolshevism. Bolshevism in general is a catastrophe, a shipwreck.
This is what you do not realise, and you will be able to realise it only when you learn our history of the last three years.
All the political tendencies which existed before the Revolution may be divided into four groups. The first group was the monarchical-i.e., the group that supported the Government. It consisted of people who sympathised with the Government partly on grounds of principle, partly on those of personal interest. Theoretically, they desired a return to autocracy, but actually their wish was only to recover and retain their privileged position. These people did not form a strict political party. The latter was formed by various organisations of nobles and political groups like the 'Union of the Russian People' or the 'Union of Arch-angel Michael'. Their programmes and tactics were very limited, and consisted chiefly in petitioning for and obtaining from the Government special grants and in the organisation of Jewish pogroms.
The second group was formed by the 'Octobrists*. This party emerged from the Revolution of 1905, and its official aim was the realisation of the principles included in the Emperor's Manifesto of October 17, in which Russia was promised all sorts of freedoms. The actual activity of this group was the struggle against any such realisation. This party was formed by wealthy bourgeois and members of the bureaucracy or of the intelligentsia who liked liberal sentiments without wishing to break away from the Government. A well known anecdote relates how the Emperor Nicholas II, wishing to be very agreeable to somebody, said: 'I am the first Octobrist in Russia.' The comment made on it was 'that was because he had signed the Manifesto but had not carried it out.'
The third group embraced the so-called 'Cadets', the word being a combination of the first letters of the Constitutional-Democratic Party. Its programme was too theoretic; its origin was to be found in the political clubs gathered round Moscow University. They wanted to remain 'legal', and therefore did not publicly declare their real republican and socialistic tendencies. Its vital element was constituted by the members of the former Zemsky Sojous, who joined the party some time after its constitution. But they were bound by the programme of their party, whose principle had more platform significance than anything else -e.g., universal suffrage on the principle of the direct, secret, and equal ballot.
If the Octobrists were insincere in one way, the Cadets were in another way, and both were equally different from what they professed to be. They were hampered by the controversial character of several points in their programme and a certain 'party discipline'. Many of its members were highly respectable, esteemed, and energetic men, who formed a group somewhat outside the party proper. They were completely lost among the rank and file of the party, and the mass of the most important members who had actual vital political experience, who knew the country and the people, never played any leading role in the party. The lead was usually taken by theorists of the professional and barrister class. All this deprived the party of strength and actual value. Its left wing was too closely connected with the socialistic parties to be of real vitality and energy.
In the fourth group we can include all the socialistic parties, working on ready-made plans and differing very little from their colleagues abroad. Their division into different groups brought into prominence two chief divergent groups: the 'Social-Revolutionaries' basing themselves chiefly on their 'agrarian policy', and the 'Social-Democrats' -orthodox Marxists. The latter party was itself subdivided into two groups those who advocated the 'minimum' programme, the Mensheviks, and those advocating the 'maximum' programme -the Bolsheviks. The most vital tendencies in the socialistic parties were the former 'Narodniki', united to a certain extent with the Social-Revolutionaries, or the Narodnyie-Socialists (Socialists of the People), who were of a less extreme tendency. Their success was hampered, however, by the socialistic ballast of their programmes.
The Revolution provoking the fall of the old regime brought to a natural end the activity of the Monar chists and Octobrists as political parties. There remained the 'Cadets', who now openly embraced the republican faith, and the different kinds of Socialists. Neither the 'Cadets' nor the Socialists were in a position to offer effective resistance against the activities of the Bolsheviks. The different groups of Socialists, however loudly they protested against the means used by the Bolsheviks, did not cease to regard them as part of their own political group. They addressed them as 'comrades' and found it possible to discuss terms of agreement with them. The attempts to arrive at real agreements were, of course, doomed to failure, for every agreement requires a certain amount of honesty or seriousness from both sides. But Bolsheviks never considered these agreements with seriousness. The chief aim of their game was to gain time and their chief object to obtain power. The rest of the Socialists did not venture to protest strongly enough or actively oppose people who repeated their own phrases about the labour system, about the struggle with capitalism, and the victory of the proletariat, The 'comrade-Bolsheviks' only laughed at the sentimentality of the 'comrade-Socialists', and using them as blind tools for their purposes worked for their aims and achieved what they wanted.
This was the extraordinary period of a 'comrade-Premier' and Commander-in-Chief, the barrister Kerensky. The 'Cadets' tried to save the last remnants of common sense, but found it impossible to work in common with the Socialists. The Socialists, on the other hand, were ready for an agreement with the Bolsheviks. The road to the victory of Bolshevism lay open.
Only after two years of humiliation and suffering has Russia succeeded in organising a Centre which does not consider it possible to compromise with Bolshevism. This Centre is for the present at the place where I am now writing, the headquarters of the Volunteer Army.
You surely do not know what this Volunteer Army really is. Its now enormous organisation has developed out of a little detachment of 3,000 men who in February 1918, began their struggle under the leadership of General Kornilov. The legendary expedition of this detachment which came to an end at the death of General Kornilov near Ekaterinodar on March 31, 1918, laid the foundation of the struggle with Bolshevism. It is described in a book written by A. A. Savorine under the title The Kornilov Expedition. It is almost the only book published in Russia during the last two years. In a later letter I hope to summarise its contents and to describe the origin of the Volunteer Army, whose history is also the history of the most recent years of Russia.
Even now it would be possible to fill many pages with an analysis of Volunteer activity. In many cases its energies are too much directed towards the restoration of the bad features of the old regime and developing them to a degree worse than they have ever been before. On the other hand, it is in many ways much too tolerant of events which are the heritage of the Provisional Government and the Bolshevik rule.
Only the future can show what is to be the result of all this. At present one thing is of importance. The Volunteer Army is fighting the Bolsheviks and struggling for a united Russia. Accordingly, Russia and the Volunteer Army are now one and the same thing.
Speaking of Russia you speak of the Volunteer Army and vice versa.
But during the first six or nine months of the Revolution no such Centre existed. Russia was then represented by Bolshevism 'made in Germany', united with the 'real Russian' profiteering, and fostered by the absurd idealism of the intelligentsia who quoted the text 'Do not overcome evil by evil.' In face of the weakness of the intelligentsia, Bolshevism very soon showed its real face. It began openly to wage war on culture, to destroy all cultural values, and to annihilate the intelligentsia as the representative of culture. The 'Nihilism' of former times was already well acquainted with contempt for culture, as if the only valuable results of the progress of humanity were high explosives. Bolshevism developed this idea to the utmost. Everything that did not help or foster the production of bombs was declared to be valueless, 'bourgeois', and deserving only of destruction and contempt. This point of view was very acceptable to the imagination of the proletarians. The workmen were at once made equals with the intelligentsia, and were even declared superior to it. Everything in which they differed from the intelligentsia was now proclaimed unnecessary and even hostile to the interests of the people and the idea of freedom. The leaders of Bolshevism openly professed that all that they asked of culture was the means of fighting the bourgeoisie and to obtain power for the proletariat. Science, arts, literature, were put under suspicion and were handed over to the watchful control of illiterate bodies of workmen. The newspapers underwent a treatment which the chiefs of the gendarmes of Nicholas I never dreamt of. From the moment the Bolsheviks seized power, all newspapers were shut down. Their place was taken by official or semi-official illiterate Bolshevik Tsvtias (News) or Pravdas (Truth). In indescribable forms these papers praised the Soviet power and poured out contempt on the 'bourgeoisie'. An unofficial paper ( socialistic, of course ) was allowed to be printed on condition that it formally supported Bolshevism, -'recognised the Soviet power' was the official expression. This meant the recognition of this power as democratic and the best in the world. It involved also the necessity of expressing the loyalty of the paper by publishing defamations and denouncements of the 'bourgeoisie' and by vile criticism of everything that was not immediately connected with Bolshevism or the Soviets. With the object of preserving the papers from any other kind of influence they were subjected to the control of the workmen of the office where the paper was printed. Their representatives formed the majority of the 'editorial body', which was empowered to dismiss old members of the staff, to appoint new ones, and generally to control the editorial administration. Even the most tolerant and unpretentious journalists had to cease their work, and very soon every journal became the prey of self-seeking people without knowledge of any kind of journalistic work.
Officially the struggle was directed against the 'bourgeoisie'. But this term in its Bolshevik interpretation embraced the whole of the intelligentsia. All persons belonging to the professions, professors, artists, doctors, engineers, and generally all specialists were proclaimed bourgeois indiscriminately and subjected to the control of their own workmen and servants. In a way their position was worse than that of the journalists. The latter were left alone, but doctors, engineers, and civil servants were forced to work under the most incredible conditions. Workmen and guards controlled their engineers; doctors were superseded by councils of patients and porters. This is not a joke -it is real life and obtains at this moment in Soviet Russia. In the spring of 1919, notwithstanding the difficulties created by Bolshevism and the Soviets, the doctors of Soviet Russia assembled in the yearly 'Girogov' meeting held in honour of the late well-known surgeon, Girogov. The evidence collected on that occasion showed that the doctors were quite helpless in combating epidemics owing to the control exercised over them by medical attendants who filled all the responsible offices.
War on the intelligentsia was inevitable on the part of Bolshevism. The intelligentsia could not be deceived for long. It would soon have discovered the underlying lies of Bolshevism. To render the intelligentsia harmless, to prevent its explaining the truth to the people, it was proclaimed bourgeois, its members declared outlaws, and purposely confused with the bourgeois against whom the struggle was originally directed. This was logically inevitable. The intelligentsia, being inclined, generally speaking, to believe in revolutionary phrases, would have otherwise joined Bolshevism and driven it to another line of development. It would have insisted on meeting the debts to which Bolshevism had attached its signature without dreaming of paying anything. In other words, the intelligentsia would have insisted on the fulfilment of the promises given by the Bolsheviks to the people, which the Bolsheviks themselves consider only as a bait thrown to make fishing easier. Had the intelligentsia not been so decidedly denied participation in the Revolution it would have spoiled the game of Bolshevism. The Bolsheviks would never have been able to humiliate Russia to the degree they have. The appropriateness of their measures -i.e., the ostracism of the intelligentsia -is so striking that it involuntarily evokes the thought of a German invention, so well did it fit the purpose of the new Bolshevik state.
As a general rule, Bolshevism based itself on the worst forces underlying Russian life. How far they have succeeded in bringing those forces into existence is a question with which I will deal separately. The provocation of the feelings of the people against the intelligentsia was a thing more easy to achieve in Russia than anywhere else, for the Russian 'people' are as a rule suspicious of every 'gentleman'. In Russia all epidemics of cholera are always connected with rumours of doctors poisoning wells or their patients in the hospitals and are usually followed by pogroms [aka, organized massacres] of doctors.
A special aspect of Bolshevism has not yet been sufficiently insisted on. I mean the participation in it of decidedly criminal elements. In former days the population of Russian prisons used to be divided into two classes, the minority of 'comrade-politicals' and the vast majority of 'comrade-criminals'. I think that nobody of the 'comrade-political' ever dreamt that the leading part in the Revolution would be played by the 'comrade-criminals'. But this is the truth. The future historian will have to think out a new definition for the Soviet power: some new word showing the prominent part played by the criminal element, something like 'kakourgocracy' or 'paranomocracy'. Henry George said in Progress and Poverty that our civilisation does not require any foreign barbarians for its destruction. It carries in its very bosom the barbarians who will destroy it. Bolshevism consists just in the organisation and gathering of these barbarian forces existing inside contemporary society, hostile to culture and civilisation.
This is a vital point which you miss when you are speaking of Bolshevism in England. You will realise it only when it is too late.
Letter V
Ekaterinodar
I shall have to deal with Bolshevism and the history of its development on another occasion. For the present I shall only try to sketch the outlines of the present conditions in Russia and the forces underlying them.
The line of battle of the Volunteer Army of General Denikin against the Bolsheviks, i.e., Soviet Russia, stretches on a long curved front from Odessa to Astrakhan. The central portion of this front, in the direction of Moscow, is holding its own at present, and at the moment of writing the Volunteer Army has conquered Orel and is advancing in the direction of Toula and Briansk. On the sector between Kiev and Odessa fighting is proceeding with the remnant of the Ukrainian Army, i.e., with the Bolsheviks under another name; and the final clearance of this territory from all kinds of Bolsheviks is merely a matter of time. The position of the Volga and the Caucasus is, however, not so good.
The withdrawal of the English forces from Baku and the rest of Transcaucasia -a move so loudly advocated by the English friends of the Bolsheviks -has created many difficulties for the Volunteer Army and given new hope to the Bolsheviks of Baku and Astrakhan. The mountaineers of Dagestan and Circassia revolted at once, and nobody can foresee the end of this new struggle. The Bolsheviks are making desperate attempts to take Tsaritzine and break through to Astrakhan. If they succeed in doing this they will find it easy to join the Dagestan revolt, and then the danger of the spread of Bolshevism over the whole of the Caucasus may become acute. The Bolsheviks will then also succeed in seizing the naphtha districts, which undoubtedly will change their position for the better. The Turkestan and Transcaspian districts are in the full possession of the Bolsheviks.
The position on the Koltchak front seems uncertain. You will certainly have more n
