"Will they take Vanya?" the housewife asked tearfully; "he is not seventeen yet."
"I don't mind going to the front," came from the boy lying on the stove. "They get a good pyock in the Army, and I may advance to Kommandir like cousin Vaska did."
He rose, drew a herring and a hunk of bread from his polushubka, and began to eat. His father watched him hungrily. "Give mother a bite," he urged after a while; "she's had nothing since yesterday."
"I'm not hungry," the mother said apologetically.
"Yes, my friends," the contractor spoke again as if remembering an unfinished thought, "the Poles must be taught a lesson, and we must all defend the Revolution."
"What are we to defend?" Pyotr demanded bitterly. "The fat Commissars and the Tcheka with its shooting, that's what we defend. We haven't got anything else."
"You talk like a counter-revolutionist," Vanya; shouted, jumping off the stove.
"We haven't even our children," his father continued. "That boy has become a hoodlum since he joined the Komsomol (Union of Communist Youth). He learns there to hate his parents."
Vanya pushed his fur cap over his ears and stepped toward the door. "Take care I don't tell on you," he said, slamming it behind him.
The Italian Socialist Mission, headed by Seratti, is in the city, and the occasion is celebrated with the usual military parades, demonstrations, and meetings. But the show has lost interest for me. I have looked back of the curtain. The performances lack sincerity; political intrigue is the mainspring of the spectacles. The workers have no part in them except for mechanical obedience to orders; hypocrisy conducts the delegates through the factories; false information deceives them regarding the actual state of affairs; surveillance prevents their getting in touch with the people and learning the truth of the situation. The delegates are dined, feted, and influenced to bring their organizations into the fold of the Third International, under the leadership of Moscow.
How far it all is from my conception of revolutionary probity and purpose!
The Communist leaders have become involved in schemes of political recognition and are wasting the energies of the Revolution to create an appearance of military strength and industrial health. They have lost sight of the real values underlying the great change. The people sense the false tendencies of the new regime and helplessly see it return to old practices. The proletariat is growing disillusioned; it sees its revolutionary conquests sacrified one by one, the former champions of liberty become hard rulers, defenders of the existing regime, and the revolutionary slogans and hopes turn to dying embers.
An atmosphere of embittered helplessness pervades the circles of the intelligentsia, a paralyzing sense of their lack of cohesion and energizing purpose. They are exhausted by years of starvation; their mental bases are weakened, the spiritual bonds with the people severed.
The revolutionists of the Left are disorganized, broken by persecution and internal disunion. The stress and storm period has shattered old moorings and set accepted values adrift. Little of constructive character is manifest in the general confusion. The ruthless hand of life in the making, more than Bolshevik fiat, has destroyed old forms, creating a chaos of things physical and spiritual. Institutions and ideas, thrown into a common heap, rage in primitive passion and wildly seek to disentangle themselves, desperately clutching at each other in the attempt to rise to the surface. And above the shouts and din of the struggling mass, drowning all other cries, sounds the desperate, ceaseless plea: Bread! Bread!
Moscow is eaten with bureaucracy, Petrograd is a dying city. Not here is the Revolution. Out in the country, among the common people, one must see new Russia and live its life in the making.
I have been requested to join the expedition planned by the Museum of the Revolution. Its purpose is to collect historic material of the revolutionary movement since its inception, almost a hundred years ago. I had hoped to participate in more constructive labors, but circumstances and the growing coldness of the Communist attitude exclude me from more vital work. The mission of the expedition is non-political, and I have decided to accept the offer.
CHAPTER XXI EN ROUTE TO THE UKRAINA July, IQ20. — Turbulent mobs besiege our train at every station. Soldiers and workers, peasants, women, and children, loaded with heavy bags, frantically fight way toward the cars. They climb through the broken windows, board the bumpers, and crowd upon the steps, recklessly clinging to door handles and clutching at each other for support. Like maddened ants they cover every inch of space, in momentary danger of limb and life. It is a dense, surging human sea moved by the one passion of securing a foothold on the the women and children lying flat, the men kneeling or standing up. Frequently at night, the train passing under a bridge or trestle, scores of them are swept to their death.
At the stations the railroad militia await us. They surround a car, drive the passengers off roof and steps, and proceed to another coach. But the next instant there is a rush and struggle, and the cleared car is again covered with the human swarm. Often the mUitsioneri resort to arms, firing salvos over the train. But the people are desperate: they had spent days, even weeks, in procuring "traveling papers" — they are in search of food or returning with filled bags to their hungry families. Death from a bullet is no more terrible to them than starvation.
With sickening regularity these scenes repeat themselves at every stopping place. It is becoming a torture to travel in comparative comfort in our conspicuous- Even the roofs are crowded, EN ROUTE TO THE UKRAINA looking car, recently renovated and painted a bright red, and bearing the inscription, "Extraordinary Commission of the Museum of the Revolution."
The Expedition consists of six persons, comprising the secretary, Miss A. Shakol; the treasurer, Emma Goldman; the historical "expert" Yakovlev, and his wife; a young Communist, a student of the Petrograd University; and myself as chairman. Our party also includes the official provodnik (porter) and Henry Alsberg, the American correspondent, whose friendly attitude to Russia had secured for him Zinoviev's permission to accompany us. Our coach is divided into several coupes, an office, dining room, and a kitchen furnished with the linen and silverware of the Winter Palace, now the headquarters of the Museum.
In the daytime the people remain at a respectful distance, the inscription on our car evidently creating the impression that it is occupied by the Tcheka, the most dreaded institution in Russia. But at night, the stations in semi-darkness, we are besieged by throngs clamoring for accommodation. It is contrary to our instructions to admit anyone, because of the danger of having our material stolen, as well as for fear of disease. The people are vermin-infected; almost every one traveling in the Ukraina is afflicted with sipnyak, a form of typhus that often results fatally. Our historian lives in mortal dread of it, and vehemently protests against receiving outsiders. We compromise by permitting several old women and cripples to ride on the platform, and stealthily we feed them from the supplies of our "commune."
The population of the districts we are passing through is in a state of disquiet and alarm. At every station we are warned not to proceed further: the Whites, robber bands, Makhno, and Wrangel are within gunshot, we are assured. The atmosphere thickens with fear-inspiring rumors as we advance southward.
A caldron of seething emotions, life in the South constrasts strikingly with that of the North. By comparison Moscow and Petrograd appear quiet and orderly. Here all is unformed, grotesque, chaotic. Frequent changes of government, with their accompaniment of civil war and destruction, have produced a mental and physical condition unknown in other parts of the country. They have created an atmosphere of uncertainty, of life lacking roots, of constant anxiety. Some parts of the Ukraina have experienced fourteen different regimes within the period of 1917-1920, each involving violent disturbance of normal existence, disorganizing and tearing life from its foundations.
The whole gamut of revolutionary and counterrevolutionary passions has been played on this territory. Here the nationalistic Rada had fought the local organs of the Kerensky government till the Brest Treaty opened Southern Russia to German occupation. Prussian bayonets dissolved the Rada, and Hetman Skoropadsky, by grace of the Kaiser, lorded it over the country in the name of an "independent and selfdetermining 1 ' people. Disaster on the Western Front and revolution in their own country compelled the Germans to withdraw, the new state of affairs giving Petlura victory over the Hetman. Kaleidoscopically changed the governments. Dictator Petlura and his Directorium were driven out by the rebel peasantry and the Red Army, the latter in turn giving way to Denikin. Subsequently the Bolsheviki became the masters of the Ukraina, soon to be forced back by the Poles, and then again the Communists took possession.
The long-continued military and civil struggles have deranged the entire life of the South. Social classes have been destroyed, old customs and traditions abol- EN ROUTE TO THE UKRAINA 161 ished, cultural barriers broken down, without the people having been able to adjust themselves to the new conditions, which are in constant flux. There has been neither time nor opportunity to reconstruct one's mental and physical mode of life, to orient oneself within the constantly changing environment.
The instincts of hunger and fear have become the sole leitmotif of thought, feeling, and action. Uncertainty is all-pervading and persistent: it is the only definite, actual reality. The question of bread, the danger of attack, are the exclusive topics of interest. You hear stories of armed forces sacking the environs of the city, and fanciful speculation about the character of the marauders, whom some claim as Whites, others as Greens,* or pogrom bandits. The legendary figures of Makhno, Marusya, and Stchooss loom large in the atmosphere of panic created by the horrors lived through and the still more fearful apprehension of the unknown.
Alarm and dread punctuate the life and thought of the people. They permeate the entire consciousness of being. Characteristic of it, as of the general chaos of the situation, is the reply one receives on inquiring the time of day. It is indicative of the degree of the informant's Bolshevik or opposition sentiments when one is told: "three o'clock by the old," "five by the new," or "six by the latest," the Communists having recently ordered, for the third time, the "saving" of another hour of daylight.
The whole country resembles a military camp living in constant expectation of invasion, civil war, and sudden change of government, bringing with it renewed slaughter and oppression, confiscation, and famine. Industrial activity is paralyzed, the financial situation ♦Peasant Bands, called Zelyonniy (green) because of their habitat in forests. According to another version the appellation is derived from the name of one of their leaders.
hopeless. Every regime has issued its own money, interdicting all previous forms of exchange. But among the people the various "papers" are circulating, including Kerensky, Tsarist, Ukrainian, and Soviet money. Every "rouble" has its own, constantly varying value, so that the market women have to become professors of mathematics — as the people jestingly say — to find their way in this financial labyrinth.
Beneath the surface of the daily life man's primitive passions, unleashed, hold almost free sway. Ethical values are dissolved, the gloss of civilization rubbed off. There remains only the unadorned instinct of self-preservation and the ever-present dread of tomorrow. The victory of the Whites or the investing of a city by them involves savage reprisals, pogroms against Jews, death for Communists, prison and torture for those suspected of sympathizing with the latter. The advent of the Bolsheviki signifies indiscriminate Red terror. Either is disastrous; it has happened many times, and the people live in perpetual fear of its repetition. Internecine strife has marched through the Ukraina like a veritable man-eater, devouring, devastating, and leaving ruin, despair, and horror in its wake. Stories of White and Red atrocities are on everybody's lips, accounts of personal experiences harrowing in their recital of fiendish murder and rapine, of inhuman cruelty and unspeakable outrages.
CHAPTER XXII The work of collecting material Is divided among the members of our Expedition according to fitness and inclination. By general consent, and to his own great satisfaction, the only Communist among us, a very intelligent and idealistic youth, is assigned to visit Party headquarters. Besides my general duties as Chairman, my domain includes labor unions, revolutionary organizations, and semi-legal or "underground" bodies.
In the Soviet institutions, as among the people at large, an intensely nationalistic, even chauvinistic spirit is felt. To the natives the Ukraina is the only true and real Russia; its culture, language, and customs superior to those of the North. They dislike the "Russian" and resent the domination of Moscow. Antagonism to the Bolsheviki is general, the hatred of the Tcheka universal. Even the Communists are incensed over the arbitrary methods of the Center, and demand greater independence and self-determination. But the policy of the Kremlin is to put its own men at the head of Ukrainian institutions, and frequently a whole trainload of Moscow Bolsheviki, including clerks and typists, are dispatched to the South to take charge of a certain department or bureau. The imported officials, unfamiliar with the conditions and psychology of the country, often even ignorant of its language, apply Moscow methods and force Moscow views upon the population with the result of alienating even the friendly disposed elements.
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A July day, with the Southern sun steadily pouring down heat, and the stone pavement seeming to melt beneath my feet. The streets are crowded with people in variegated attire, the play of color pleasing to the eye. The Ukrainians are better clad and nourished than the people in Petrograd or Moscow. The women are strikingly beautiful, with expressive dark eyes and oval faces, olive skinned. The men are less prepossessing, often low-browed and coarse-featured, the trace of the Mongol evident. Most of the girls, comely and buxom, are short-skirted and bare-legged; others, well shod but stockingless, present an incongruous sight. Some wear lapti, a rough wooden sandal that clatters noisily on the pavement. Almost every one is chewing the popular semetchki, dried sunflower seeds, deftly ejecting the shell, and covering the filthy sidewalks with a sheet of whitish gray.
On the corner two boys in worn student uniforms vociferously call the attention of the passers-by to hot pirozhki, the Russian doughy cake filled with meat or cabbage. A bevy of young girls, almost children, faces powdered, lips crimson, approach the venders.
"What costs the pleasure?" inquires one in a thin, high-pitched voice.
"Fifty roubles."
"Oh, you little speculator," the girl teases. "Make it cheaper for me, won't you, dear one?" she coaxes, pressing closer to the boy.
Three sailors approach, whistling the popular Stenka Razin tune. "What beauties I" one comments, unceremoniously embracing the girl nearest him.
"Hey, lasses, come with us," another commands. "Don't be hanging around those speculators."
With ribald laughter the girls join them. Arm in arm they march down the street.
"Damn those Sovietsky cavaliers," one of the students rages. "Hot pirozhki, hot I Buying, who's buying, tovarishtchil" With considerable difficulty I find the home of Nadya, the Left Social Revolutionist, for whom I have a message from her friends in Moscow. My knock is answered by an old lady with kindly face and snowwhite hair. "My daughter is at work," she says, suspiciously scrutinizing me. "May I know what you wish?"
Reassured by my explanation, she bids me enter, but her manner continues guarded. It requires some time before she is convinced of my good intentions, and then she begins to unburden her heart. She owned the house in which she now occupies one room together with her daughter, the rest having been requisitioned by the Soviet Housing Committee. "It is enough for our modest needs," the old lady says resignedly, her glance passing over the small chamber containing a single bed, a kitchen table, and several wooden chairs. "I have only Nadya now," she adds, a tremor in her voice.
"I thank God I have her," she continues after a while. "Oh, the terrible times we have lived through. You will surely not believe it — I'm not fifty yet." She passes her delicate, thin hand over her white hair. "I don't know how it is where you come from, but here life is a koshmar (nightmare). I have grown used to hunger and cold, but the constant fear for the safety of my child makes life a torture. But it is a sin to complain," she crosses herself devoutly. "Blessed be the Lord, for he has left me my daughter."
In the course of the conversation I learn that her eldest son was killed by Denikin men; the youngest, Volodya, a boy of twenty, was shot by the Bolsheviki. She could never find out the reason. "The terrible Tcheka," she sighs, with tears in her eyes. "But the predsedatel (chairman) was a kind man," she continues presently; "it was he who saved my little Nadya. She had also been doomed to die. Once they took her to the cellar, stark naked — may God forgive them! They forced her to the floor, face downward. Then a shot was fired over her head. Oh, the horror of it! She was told to confess and her life would be saved. But what could the poor child confess? She had nothing to tell. Indeed, she wouldn't if she could, for Nadenka is like steel. Then she was sent back to her cell, and every night she expected to be taken out and shot, and when she heard a footstep, she would think they were coming for her. What torture the child lived through! But it was always someone else they took, and those never returned. Then one day the predsedatel sent for her and told her he did not want her shot, and that she was free to go home. Before that the Tcheka had assured me that my daughter had been sent to Moscow for trial. And there she stood before me — ah, so pale and wan, more like a ghost of herself. Glory to the Lord for His goodness," she sobs quietly.
The door opens and a girl steps in, carrying a bag slung across her shoulders. She is young and attractive, not over twenty, with her face lit up by black, shining eyes.
She stops affrighted as her glance falls upon me. "A friend," I hasten to reassure her, delivering the message entrusted to me in Moscow. She brightens at once, puts the bag on the table, and kisses her mother. "We'll celebrate today, mamenka" she announces; "I got my pyock" She begins sorting the things, calling out cheerily, "Herrings, two pounds; half a pound of soap; one pound of vegetable butter; a quarter of a pound of tobacco. That's from the sobezh" (Department of Social Care), she explains, turning to me. "I am employed there, but the main 'social care' is given to the ration," she says jestingly. "It's better in quality and quantity than I receive at the other two places. You know, some of us have to hold three or even four positions to make ends meet. Mother and I together receive one and three-quarter pounds of bread per day, and with this monthly pyock and what I get from my other positions, we manage to live. Isn't it so, mamertkaf" and she again embraces her mother affectionately.
"It would be sinful to complain, my child," the old lady replies; "other people are worse off."
Nadya has preserved her sense of humor, and her silvery laugh frequently punctuates the conversation. She is much concerned about the fate of her friends in the North, and is overjoyed to get direct news of Marusya, as she affectionately calls Maria Spiridonova. Eagerly she listens to the story of my repeated visits to the famous leader of the Left Social Revolutionists, who is now in hiding in Moscow. "I love and worship her," she declares impetuously; "she has been the heroine of my life. And to think how the Bolsheviki hound her! Here in the South," she continues more calmly, "our Party has been almost entirely liquidated. The persecution has forced the weaker ones to make peace with the Communists; some have even joined them. Those of us who have remained true keep 'underground.' The Red terror is such that activity now is out of the question. With paper, presses, and everything else nationalized, we cannot even print a handbill, as we used to do in the time of the Tsar. Besides, the workers are so cowed, their need so great, they will listen to you only if you can offer them bread. Moreover, their minds have been poisoned against the intelligentsia. The latter are actually dying of starvation. Here in Kharkov, for instance, they receive six to seven thousand roubles per month, while a pound of bread costs two to three thousand. Some wit figured out that the Soviet salary of twenty of the most noted Russian professors equals — according to the present purchasing power of the rouble — the amount allowed by the old regime budget for the support of the watchdog at the government institutions."
By the aid of Nadya I am enabled to get in touch with several "irreconcilables" of the Left Social Revolutionists. The most interesting personality among them is N, a former katorzhanin * and later instructor in literature in the People's University of Kharkov. Recently he has been discharged because the political commissar, a Communist youth, considered his lectures of an anti-Marxian tendency.
"The Bolsheviki complain that they lack teachers and educators," N said, "but in reality they permit no one to work with them unless he be a Communist or ingratiate himself with the Communist *ceuV It is the latter, the Party unit in every institution, that decides on the 'reliability' and fitness — even of professors and teachers."
"The Bolsheviki have failed," he remarked to me on another occasion, "chiefly because of their total intellectual barbarism. Social life, no less than individual, is impossible without certain ethical and human values. The Bolsheviki have abolished them, and in their place we have only the arbitrary will of the Soviet bureaucracy and irresponsible terror."
N voices the sentiments of the Left Social Revolutionary group, his views fully shared by his comrades. The rule of a minority, they agree, is necessarily a despotism based on oppression and violence. Thus 10,000 Spartans governed 300,000 Helots, while in the French Revolution 300,000 Jacobins sought to control the 7,000,000 citizens of France. Now 500,000 Communists have by the same methods enslaved the whole of Russia with its popula- * A political prisoner condemned to hard labor.
tion of more than 100,000,000. Such a regime must become the negation of its original source. Though born of the Revolution, the offspring of the movement for liberation, it must deny and pervert the very ideals and aims that gave it birth. In consequence there is crying inequality of the new social groups, instead of the proclaimed equality; the stifling of every popular opinion instead of the promised freedom; violence and terror instead of the expected reign of brotherhood and love.
The present situation, N believes, is the inevitable result of Bolshevik dictatorship. The Communists have discredited the ideas and slogans of the Revolution. They have started among the people a counter-revolutionary wave which is bound to destroy the conquests of 19 17. The strength of the Bolsheviki is in reality insignificant. They remain in power only because of the weakness of their political opponents and the exhaustion of the masses. "But their Ninth Thermidor * must soon come," N concluded with conviction, u and no one will rise to their defense."
Returning late in the evening to the room assigned me in the home of G, a former bourgeois, and finding the bell out of order, I knocked long and persistently without receiving a reply. I almost despaired of gaining admittance, when there resounded the clanking of chains, a heavy bar was lifted, someone fumbled with the keys, and at last the door opened before me. I could see no one about, and a feeling of uneasiness possessed me when suddenly a tall, slender figure stepped before me, and I recognized the owner of the apartment.
"I did not see you," I exclaimed in surprise.
"A simple precaution," he replied, pointing to the * The fall of Robespierre— July 27, 1794.
niche between the double doors where he had evidently been hiding.
"One can't tell these days," he remarked nervously; " 'they' have the habit of visiting us unexpectedly. I can slip through," he added significantly.
I invited him to my room, and we talked until early morning. G 's story proved a most interesting in Petrograd, where he was employed as a mechanical engineer in the Putilov Mills, his brother-in-law serving as his assistant. Neither of them participated in politics, all their time being devoted to their work. One morning Petrograd was stirred by the killing of Uritsky, the head of the Tcheka. G and his brother-in-law had never before heard of Kannegisser, who committed the deed, yet both were arrested together with several hundred other bourgeois. His brother-in-law was shot — by mistake, as the Tcheka later admitted, his name resembling that of a distant relative, a former officer in the Tsar's army. The wife of the executed, G 's sister, learning of the fate of her husband, committed suicide. G himself was released, then rearrested, and sent to forced labor in Vologda as a bourzhooi, "It happened so unexpectedly," he related, "they did not even give us time to take a few things along. It was a windy, cold day, in October, 191 8. I was crossing the Nevsky on my way home from work, when all at once I realized that the whole district was surrounded by the military and Tchekists. Every one was detained. Those who could not produce a Communist membership card or a document proving themselves Soviet employees were arrested. The women also, though they were released in the morning. Unfortunately I had left my portfolio at my office, with all my papers in it. They would not listen to explanations or give me a chance to communicate with any one. Within forty-eight hours, all the men were transported to Vologda. My family — my dear wife and three children — remained in complete ignorance of my fate." G paused. "Shall we have some tea?" he asked, trying to hide his emotion.
As he continued, I learned that together with several hundred other men, almost all alleged bourgeois, G was kept in the Vologda prison for several weeks, being treated as dangerous criminals and finally ordered to the front. There they were divided into working parties of ten, on the principle of collective responsibility: should one member of the party escape, the other nine would forfeit their lives.
The prisoners had to dig trenches, build barracks for the soldiers, and lay roads. Often they were forced to expose themselves to the fire of the English, to save machine guns deserted by the Red Army during the fight. They could be kept, according to Soviet decree, only three months at the front, yet they were forced to remain till the end of the campaign. Exposed to danger, cold, and hunger, without warm clothing in the raw winter of the North, the ranks of the men thinned daily, to be filled by new parties of forced labor collected in a similar manner.
After a few months G fell ill. By the aid of a military surgeon, a drafted medical student whom he had known before, he succeeded in being returned home. But when he reached Petrograd, he failed to locate his family. All the bourgeois tenants of his house had been ejected, to make place for workers; he could find no trace of his wife and children. Laid low by fever acquired on the front, G was sent to a hospital. The physicians held out little hope of recovery, but the determination to find his family rekindled the dying embers of life, and after four weeks G- left his sick bed.
He had just started his search again when he received an order mobilizing him, as an engineer, to a machine factory on the Ural. His efforts to secure delay proved fruitless. Friends promised to continue looking for his loved ones, and he departed for the East. There he applied himself conscientiously to the work, making the necessary repairs, so that the factory could presently begin operations. After a while he asked permission to return home, but he was informed that he would go as a prisoner, the political commissar having denounced him for "unfriendly disposition" toward the Bolsheviki. G was arrested and sent to Moscow. When he reached the capital, he found a charge of sabotage against him. He succeeded in proving the falsity of the accusation, and after four months of imprisonment he was released. But the experience so affected him that he suffered two successive attacks of "returning" typhus, from which he emerged entirely unfit for work. He secured permission to visit his relatives in Kharkov where he hoped to recuperate. There, to his great joy, quite unexpectedly, he found his family. They had long thought him dead, their inquiries and numerous letters having remained unanswered. Reunited with his wife and children, G remained in the city, having received a position in a local institution. He finds life in Kharkov much more bearable, though the Communist campaign against the intellectuals constantly rouses the people against them.
"The Bolsheviki have turned the intelligentsia into a class of hunted animals," G said. "We are looked upon as even worse than the bourgeoisie. As a matter of fact, we are much worse off than the latter, for they usually have 'connections' in influential places, and most of them still possess some of the wealth they had hidden. They can speculate; yes, even grow rich, while we of the professional class have nothing. We are doomed to slow starvation."
i73 Snatches of song and music reached us from across the street, coming apparently from the house opposite, its windows flooded with light. "One of the Tcheka commissars," my host answered my questioning look. "By the way, a curious incident happened to me," he continued, smiling sadly. "The other day I met that Tchekist. Something about him attracted my attention — a peculiar sense of the familiar that I could not account for. Suddenly it dawned on me — that new dark-brown suit he wore, why, it was mine! They took it from me in the last house raid, two weeks ago. 'For the proletariat,' they said."
CHAPTER XXIII CHAPTER XXIII Petrovsky, Chairman of the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee, the supreme government body of the South, sat at his desk busy over a pile of documents. A middle-aged man of medium stature, his typical Ukrainian face is framed in a black beard, lit up by intelligent eyes and a winning smile. A peasant-Communist appointed by Moscow to high office, he has remained democratic and simple in manner.
Learning the mission of our Expedition, Petrovsky evinced the greatest interest. "I am heartily in sympathy with it," he said; "it's splendid, this idea of collecting the material of our great Revolution for the information of the present and future generations. I'll help you all I can. Here, in the Ukraina, you will find a wealth of documents, covering all the political changes we have had since 19 17. Of course," he continued, "we have not reached the well-organized and ordered condition of Russia. The development of our country has been quite different, and since 19 18 we have been living in constant turmoil. It's only two months ago that we have driven the Poles out of Kiev — but we have driven them out for good," he laughed heartily.
"Yes, we drove them out for good," he repeated after a while. "But we must do more; we must teach the cursed Poles a lesson — the Polish pant (masters), I mean," he corrected himself. "Our good Red Army is almost at the gates of Warsaw now. The Polish proletariat are ready to throw off the yoke of their oppressors; they are only waiting for us to give them a helping hand. We expect the Revolution to break out tHere any day," he concluded in a confidential way, "and then Soviet Poland will combine federatively with Soviet Russia, as Ukraina has done."
"Don't you think such an aggressive policy may produce a harmful effect?" I asked. "Threatened invasion may serve to arouse patriotic ardor."
"Pooh-pooh 1" the Chairman laughed. "You evidently don't know the revolutionary temper of the Polish workers. The whole country is on fire. The Red Army will be received 'with bread and salt,' as our saying is — be given a hearty welcome."