Living My Life - Emma Goldman [231]
In the hotel corridor we ran into a young woman who told us that she was on her way to the Zorins’ to call us. A friend from America was waiting, eager to see us. We followed her to an apartment on the fourth floor, and when the door was opened, I found myself in the embrace of our old comrade Bill Shatoff.3 “Bill, you here!” I cried in surprise; “why, Zorin told me you had left for Siberia!” [...]
Bill had put on considerable weight since the farewell send-off we had given him in New York. His military uniform accentuated his bulging lines and made his face look rather hard. But he was the same old Bill, impulsive, affectionate, and jovial. He pelted us with a volley of questions about America, the San Francisco labour cases, our imprisonment and deportation. “Never mind all that for the present,” we parried; “better tell us first about yourself. How do you happen still to be in Petrograd? And why were you not on the reception committee for the American deportees?” Bill looked somewhat embarrassed and sought to dodge our questions, but we were insistent. I could not bear the uncertainty about Zorin and I was not willing to suspect him of deliberate deception. “I see you have not changed,” Bill teased; “you are the same old persistent pest.” He tried to explain that in the strenuous life of Russia people had no time for mere sociability. He and Zorin, having different duties, rarely met. [ ... ] “And why could you not have come on your own account?” “The dictatorship of the proletariat,” Bill replied, patting me on the back indulgently; “but of that some other time. Now I just want to tell you,” he continued earnestly, “that the Communist State in action is exactly what we anarchists have always claimed it would be—a tightly centralized power, still more strengthened by the dangers to the Revolution. Under such conditions one cannot do as one wills. One does not just hop on a train and go, or even ride the bumpers, as I used to in the United States. One needs permission. But don’t get the idea that I miss my American ‘blessings.’ Me for Russia, the Revolution, and its glorious future!”
Bill was certain we would come to feel just as he did about things in Russia. No need to worry about trifles like propusks during our first hours together. “Propusks! I have a whole trunkful of them, and so will you soon,” he concluded, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. I caught his mood and dismissed my questions. I was dazed by the impressions that had crowded the day. Was it really only one day, I wondered. I seemed to have lived years since our arrival.
Bill Shatoff did not leave for another fortnight, and we spent together most of our time, often into the wee hours of the morning. The revolutionary canvas he unrolled before us was of far larger scope than had been painted before by anyone else. It was no longer a few individual figures thrown on the picture, their role and importance accentuated by the vast background. Great and small, high and low, stood out in bold relief, imbued with a collective will to hasten the complete triumph of the Revolution. Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev,4 with their small band of inspired comrades, had a tremendous part to play, Bill declared with enthusiastic conviction; but the real power behind them was the awakened revolutionary consciousness of the masses. The peasants had expropriated the masters’ land all through the summer of 1917 ... workers had taken possession of the factories and shops... the soldiers had flocked back by the hundred thousands from the warring fronts ... the Kronstadt sailors had translated their anarchist motto of direct action into the everyday life of the Revolution ... the