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By Root 2580 0

ways. But it was useless; every Communist I met seemed to suffer from counter-revolutionary fixation, no doubt due to the attacks already endured. How could I take issue with them? My stay in Russia had been too short for me to advise them on the most practical method of coping with the enemies of the Revolution. And what did the pesky pieces of paper matter in view of the great things already achieved? Everywhere I witnessed sublime courage, selfless devotion, and simple grandeur on the part of those holding the revolutionary fort against the entire inimical world. Thus I reasoned with myself, determinedly refusing to see the reverse side of Russia’s face. But its scarred and twisted countenance would not be ignored. It kept calling me back, urging me to look, forcing me to view its suffering. I wanted to see only its beauty and radiance, longed passionately to believe in its strength and power, yet the very hideousness of the other side compelled with an irresistible appeal. “Look, look!” it grinned, “within reach of Petrograd are vast stretches of forest, enough to heat every home and make every factory wheel turn. Yet the city is perishing from cold, and the machines are frozen. The razverstka (forcible collection of food) drains the peasantry to feed Petrograd, they are told; fertile Ukraine is forced to ship carloads of provisions northward, yet the population of the cities is starving. A goodly half of the provisions somehow vanishes along the route, the rest reaching, in the main, the markets rather than the hungry masses; and the constant shootings on the Gorokhovaya (Cheka headquarters), have you been deaf to those? And the planned prison for morally defective children—has your indignation not been aroused by this, you who have for thirty-five years hurled anathema at the traducers of child-life? What about all these ghastly blotches so skilfully hidden by Communist rouge?” [ ... ]

I dispatched a note to [Maxim] Gorki,9 requesting him to see me. I felt lost in the labyrinth of Soviet Russia, stumbling constantly over the many obstacles, vainly groping for the revolutionary light. I needed his friendly, guiding hand, I wrote him. Meanwhile I turned to Zinoviev. “Forests within easy reach of Petrograd,” I said; “why must the city freeze?” “Any amount of fuel,” Zinoviev replied; “but of what avail? Our enemies have destroyed our means of transportation; the blockade has killed off our horses as well as our men. How are we to get at the woodland?” “What about the population of Petrograd?” I persisted. “Could it not be appealed to for co-operation? Could it not be induced to go en masse with pick and ax and ropes to haul wood for its own use? Would not such a concerted effort alleviate much suffering and at the same time decrease the antagonism against your party?” It might help to diminish the misery from cold, Zinoviev replied, but it would interfere with the carrying out of the main political policies. What were they? “Concentration of all power in the hands of the proletarian avant-garde,” Zinoviev explained, “the avant-garde of the Revolution, which is the Communist Party.” “Rather a dear price to pay,” I objected. “Unfortunately,” he agreed; “but the dictatorship of the proletariat is the only workable program during a revolutionary period. Anarchist groups, free initiative of communes, as your great teachers have suggested, may be feasible in centuries to come, but not now in Russia, with the Denikins and Kolchaks ready to crush us. They have doomed the whole of Russia, yet your comrades fret about the fate of one city.” One city, with a million and a half inhabitants reduced to four hundred thousand! A mere bagatelle in the eyes of the Communist political program! Disheartened, I left the man so cock-sure of his party’s wisdom, so ensconced in the heavenly Marxian constellation and self-conscious of being one of its major stars.

John Reed10 had burst into my room like a sudden ray of light, the old buoyant, adventurous Jack that I used to know in the States. He was about to return to America, by way of